The project aimed to place cognitive psychology in the context of 21st century cognitive neuroscience by integrating research traditions in experimental cognitive psychology, brain imaging and molecular genetics. The framework for integration was a multilevel approach focusing first on the cognitive neurogenetics of attention and memory, then examining the dynamics of brain-cognition-genetics interaction in an adult lifespan perspective, and finally including aspects of cognitive pathologies. Cognitive pathologies are often associated with age specific vulnerability and should therefore be studied as an integral aspect of the dynamic brain-cognition interaction within the aging perspective. Schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease are prime examples of such pathologies with a heavy load of cognitive deficits and age related vulnerabilities in the young adult vs. old adult age range respectively.

To this end we participated in consortia combining large international databases from Norway, Sweden, UK and USA to study the genetic basis for intelligence and brain structure. Technological advances have made it possible to analyze large amounts of genetic data efficiently. A Genomewide Association Scan (GWAS) can give information of 600 000 genetic variants or more on an individual basis. This staggering amount of data necessitates a high number of study participants (tens of thousands) to yield reliable results, which can only be achieved by combining data from several centers. GWAS is also an atheoretical approach which may have the advantage of pointing out new avenues of research or narrowing down a range of alternatives for further study and replication.
Another strategy, which may allow for stronger interpretations of results, is to start with identification of a target cognitive system with well characterized human, animal and neurobiological models, and then generate hypotheses about which neurobiological systems would be the most significant sources of variation. This approach has been followed by several group members and was further developed in the CAS project, where we focussed on attention systems and their known neurochemical modulators, and then proceeding to study of a selected set of relevant genes.