Genes affect where children look ; affects mental progress

A study led by Indiana university tested the eye movement of identical and fraternal twins, the study was conducted with 233 pairs of twins about half of each were identical and the other half fraternal. this results of this study have found that eye movements to complex social and nonsocial scenes are heritable.  Children were shown 80 images and tracked what are called "tendencies of exploration" and found that identical twins show a very strong link in their analysis of the images and the same affect was evident in fraternal twins but not as strong as the correlation in identical twins. The researchers suggest that their findings show that the basis of visual analysis of images is heritable

There are reasons to be skeptical of the findings of this study, there doesn't appear to be enough of a control in this situation their findings need to be followed up with analysis of random children from different areas/ and different environments, and have no correlation between those children to really prove a genetic  link between the eye movement.
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Alzheimer's Genes Influence on Childhood IQ

An article published claims there is a genetic link between childhood IQ and the development of Alzheimer's disease later in life. Specifically, mutations of the amyloid precursor gene which has been known to give someone a greater chance of developing Alzheimer's, is now hypothesized to affect cognitive abilities in children. This could possibly affect childhood cognitive abilities because the gene causes the buildup of senile plaques in the brain, which eventually accumulate in late adulthood and cause Alzheimer's. Therefore, these plaques, though they have not accumulated to the extent that they do in the elderly with Alzheimer's could pose some hinderance in cognitive efficiency in childhood. More research needs to be done but any conclusions from this research will help provide a better understanding of Alzheimer's disease, childhood intelligence, and the link between the two.

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