Progeny's mental aptitudes in man: relationship with parental age at conception and with some environmental factors

Abstract

Psychometric tests obtained from 6564 young men were studied as a function of the parents' ages at conception and of some characteristics of the subject's postnatal environment. Individual scores, from 0 to 20, were divided into two groups: n(1)11 and n(2)<11. In univariate analysis, scores <11 were respectively related to low height, high number of siblings and junior in birth order, subject's and parents' tobacco consumption, parents' alcohol consumption, subject's and parents' low academic standard, parents' youth or ageing at conception. In multivariate analysis, these scores remained related to low height, junior in birth order, subject's and parents' tobacco consumption, parents' low academic standard, parents' youth (both <20). Regarding the respective influences of the environment and of the subject's genome on his cerebral development, one can hypothesize a complementarity between these two factors through the possibility of a genetically determined individual synaptic potential, revealing itself, more or less, according to environmental conditions.