This project represents a preliminary study of how developmental considerations can be incorporated into genome-wide association studies, drawing on previous applications of Genomic SEM to model change and stability in genetic effects across age groups (Gillespie et al. 2022) and the residual genetic variance of a phenotype after accounting for a common factor (Barr et al. 2022). Gene discovery analyses require large sample sizes and the statistical power of the current work is limited. Thus, the third aim of this project was to estimate the required sample size for an adequately powered implementation of the model. We conducted a power analysis using simulation to estimate the sample size required to detect SNP effects on residual genetic variance in adolescence. The strategy of disaggregating developmental periods in genome-wide association studies is promising and can reveal new relationships, although it will require large sample sizes.
