TY - JOUR
T1 - Using a polygenic score in a family design to understand genetic influences on musicality
AU - Wesseldijk, Laura W.
AU - Abdellaoui, Abdel
AU - Gordon, Reyna L.
AU - 23andMe Research Team
AU - Aslibekyan, Stella
AU - Auton, Adam
AU - Babalola, Elizabeth
AU - Bell, Robert K.
AU - Bielenberg, Jessica
AU - Bryc, Katarzyna
AU - Bullis, Emily
AU - Coker, Daniella
AU - Partida, Gabriel Cuellar
AU - Dhamija, Devika
AU - Das, Sayantan
AU - Elson, Sarah L.
AU - Filshtein, Teresa
AU - Fletez-Brant, Kipper
AU - Fontanillas, Pierre
AU - Freyman, Will
AU - Faaborg, Anna
AU - Fuller, Shirin T.
AU - Gandhi, Pooja M.
AU - Heilbron, Karl
AU - Hicks, Barry
AU - Jewett, Ethan M.
AU - Kukar, Katelyn
AU - Lin, Keng-Han
AU - Lowe, Maya
AU - McCreight, Jey C.
AU - McIntyre, Matthew H.
AU - Micheletti, Steven J.
AU - Moreno, Meghan E.
AU - Mountain, Joanna L.
AU - Nandakumar, Priyanka
AU - Noblin, Elizabeth S.
AU - O’Connell, Jared
AU - Huang, Yunru
AU - Petrakovitz, Aaron A.
AU - Lane, Vanessa
AU - Petrakovitz, Aaron
AU - Kim, Joanne S.
AU - Poznik, G. David
AU - Schumacher, Morgan
AU - Shastri, Anjali J.
AU - Shelton, Janie F.
AU - Shi, Jingchunzi
AU - Shringarpure, Suyash
AU - Tran, Vinh
AU - Tung, Joyce Y.
AU - Wang, Xin
AU - Ullén, Fredrik
AU - Mosing, Miriam A
N1 - Funding Information: We thank the Swedish twins and the participants of 23andMe, Inc. for their participation, the Swedish Twin Registry and the Research team of 23andMe for the data, and Prof. Ulman Lindenberger for comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. The present work was supported by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation (M11-0451:1), the Sven and Dagmar Salén Foundation and the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation (MAW 2018.0017). The Swedish Twin Registry is managed by Karolinska Institutet and receives funding through the Swedish Research Council under the Grant No. 2017-00641. Reyna L. Gordon was supported by funding from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and the Office of the Director of the National Institutes of Health under Award Numbers K18DC017383, R01DC016977 and DP2HD098859. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funders. Funding Information: The Study of Twin Adults: Genes and Environment (STAGE) is a cohort of the Swedish Twin Registry (STR) which includes approximately 32,000 adult twins born between 1959 and 1985. In 2012 and 2013, 11,543 twins from this cohort completed a web survey on, among other things, musical engagement, musical aptitude, motor timing (finger tapping), flow proneness and achievements. More details on these phenotypes, their distributions and heritability estimates can be found in earlier published studies using this sample see. In 2019 and 2020, individuals from the STR, who provided saliva samples between 2006 and 2008, were genotyped. After quality control, genotype data were available for 8,343 individuals from the STAGE cohort, of which 5648 had also completed the web survey in 2012/2013. Informed consent was obtained from all participants. The study and analyses of biomarkers were approved by the Regional Ethics Review Board in Stockholm (Dnr 2011/570-31/5, Dnr 2018/960-31/2, Dnr 2019-05879). The computations and data handling were enabled by resources provided by the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at Uppsala partially, funded by the Swedish Research Council through grant agreement no. 2018-05973. All research methods were performed in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. , –,,– Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s).
PY - 2022/12/1
Y1 - 2022/12/1
N2 - To further our understanding of the genetics of musicality, we explored associations between a polygenic score for self-reported beat synchronization ability (PGS rhythm) and objectively measured rhythm discrimination, as well as other validated music skills and music-related traits. Using family data, we were able to further explore potential pathways of direct genetic, indirect genetic (through passive gene–environment correlation) and confounding effects (such as population structure and assortative mating). In 5648 Swedish twins, we found PGS rhythm to predict not only rhythm discrimination, but also melody and pitch discrimination (betas between 0.11 and 0.16, p < 0.001), as well as other music-related outcomes (p < 0.05). In contrast, PGS rhythm was not associated with control phenotypes not directly related to music. Associations did not deteriorate within families (N = 243), implying that indirect genetic or confounding effects did not inflate PGS rhythm effects. A correlation (r = 0.05, p < 0.001) between musical enrichment of the family childhood environment and individuals' PGS rhythm, suggests gene–environment correlation. We conclude that the PGS rhythm captures individuals' general genetic musical propensity, affecting musical behavior more likely direct than through indirect or confounding effects.
AB - To further our understanding of the genetics of musicality, we explored associations between a polygenic score for self-reported beat synchronization ability (PGS rhythm) and objectively measured rhythm discrimination, as well as other validated music skills and music-related traits. Using family data, we were able to further explore potential pathways of direct genetic, indirect genetic (through passive gene–environment correlation) and confounding effects (such as population structure and assortative mating). In 5648 Swedish twins, we found PGS rhythm to predict not only rhythm discrimination, but also melody and pitch discrimination (betas between 0.11 and 0.16, p < 0.001), as well as other music-related outcomes (p < 0.05). In contrast, PGS rhythm was not associated with control phenotypes not directly related to music. Associations did not deteriorate within families (N = 243), implying that indirect genetic or confounding effects did not inflate PGS rhythm effects. A correlation (r = 0.05, p < 0.001) between musical enrichment of the family childhood environment and individuals' PGS rhythm, suggests gene–environment correlation. We conclude that the PGS rhythm captures individuals' general genetic musical propensity, affecting musical behavior more likely direct than through indirect or confounding effects.
KW - Humans
KW - Multifactorial Inheritance/genetics
KW - Music
KW - Pitch Discrimination
KW - Sweden
KW - Twins/genetics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85136846179&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-18703-w
DO - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-18703-w
M3 - Article
C2 - 36038631
SN - 2045-2322
VL - 12
SP - 14658
JO - Scientific reports
JF - Scientific reports
IS - 1
M1 - 14658
ER -
