Using a polygenic score in a family design to understand genetic influences on musicality

• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-18703-w
• Publication Date: 2022-08-29T09:03:10Z
• Authors: Laura W. Wesseldijk; Abdel Abdellaoui; Reyna L. Gordon; ; Stella Aslibekyan; Adam Auton; Elizabeth Babalola; Robert K. Bell; Jessica Bielenberg; Katarzyna Bryc; Emily Bullis; Daniella Coker; Gabriel Cuellar P...; Devika Dhamija; Sayantan Das; Sarah L. Elson; Teresa Filshtein; Kipper Fletez-Brant; Pierre Fontanillas; Will Freyman; Anna Faaborg; Shirin T. Fuller; Pooja M. Gandhi; Karl Heilbron; Barry Hicks; Ethan M. Jewett; Katelyn Kukar; Keng-Han Lin; Maya Lowe; Jey C. McCreight; Matthew H. McIntyre; Steven J. Micheletti; Meghan E. Moreno; Joanna L. Mountain; Priyanka Nandakumar; Elizabeth S. Noblin; Jared O’Connell; Yunru Huang; Aaron A. Petrakovitz; Vanessa Lane; Aaron Petrakovitz; Joanne S. Kim; G. David Poznik; Morgan Schumacher; Anjali J. Shastri; Janie F. Shelton; Jingchunzi Shi; Suyash Shringarpure; Vinh Tran; Joyce Y. Tung; Xin Wang; Wei Wang; Catherine H. Weldon; Peter Wilton; Alejandro Hernandez; Corinna Wong; Christophe Toukam...; Fredrik Ullén; Miriam A. Mosing
• Keywords: Sweden; 0301 basic medicine; Multifactorial Inheritance; 780; SDG 16 - Peace; Science; Q; R; Twins; SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities; Justice and Strong Institutions; Article; Pitch Discrimination; 03 medical and health sciences; Medicine; Humans; Multifactorial Inheritance/genetics; Twins/genetics; Music

AbstractTo further our understanding of the genetics of musicality, we explored associations between a polygenic score for self-reported beat synchronization ability (PGSrhythm) 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 PGSrhythm 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, PGSrhythm 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 PGSrhythm effects. A correlation (r = 0.05, p < 0.001) between musical enrichment of the family childhood environment and individuals' PGSrhythm, suggests gene–environment correlation. We conclude that the PGSrhythm captures individuals' general genetic musical propensity, affecting musical behavior more likely direct than through indirect or confounding effects.