Email this page

Print this page

Article Addendum

Why is intelligence correlated with semen quality? Biochemical pathways common to sperm and neuron function and their vulnerability to pleiotropic mutations

Arand Pierce, Geoffrey Miller, Rosalind Arden and Linda S. Gottfredson

This is an open-access article

 Download PDF

If the document does not open, please right-click on the link (control-click on a Macintosh) and select the option to save the file to disk.

We recently found positive correlations between human general intelligence and three key indices of semen quality, and hypothesized that these correlations arise through a phenotype-wide ‘general fitness factor’ reflecting overall mutation load.  In this addendum we consider some of the biochemical pathways that may act as targets for pleiotropic mutations that disrupt both neuron function and sperm function in parallel. We focus especially on the inter-related roles of polyunsaturated fatty acids, exocytosis, and receptor signaling.

Arden R, Gottfredson L, Miller GF, Pierce A. Intelligence and semen quality are positively correlated. Intelligence 2009; In press

Authors

Arand Pierce Corresponding author: apierce@salud.unm.edu

University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque NM

Geoffrey Miller

University of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM

Rosalind Arden

King's College London

Linda S. Gottfredson

University of Delaware; Newark, DE

This is an open-access article

 Download PDF

If the document does not open, please right-click on the link (control-click on a Macintosh) and select the option to save the file to disk.