Summary: Researchers have discovered 69 genetic variants associated with musical beat synchronization, or the ability to move in sync with the beat of music.
Source: Vanderbilt University
The first large-scale genomic study of musicality — published on the cover of today’s Nature Human Behaviour — identified 69 genetic variants associated with beat synchronization, meaning the ability to move in synchrony with the beat of music.
An international team of scientists, including the Vanderbilt Genetics Institute and 23andMe, demonstrated that human capacity to move in synchrony with a musical beat (termed beat synchronization) is partially coded in the human genome.
Many of the genes associated with beat synchronization are involved in central nervous system function, including genes expressed very early in brain development and in areas underlying auditory and motor skills, according to co-senior author Reyna Gordon, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery and co-director of the Vanderbilt Music Cognition Lab.
“Rhythm is not just influenced by a single gene, it is influenced by many hundreds of genes,” Gordon said. “Tapping, clapping and dancing in synchrony with the beat of music is at the core of our human musicality.”
The study also discovered that beat synchronization shares some of its genetic architecture with other traits, including biological rhythms such as walking, breathing and circadian patterns.
“This is novel groundwork toward understanding the biology underlying how musicality relates to other health traits,” said co-senior author Lea Davis, associate professor of Medicine.”
23andMe’s large research dataset provided study data from more than 600,000 customers who consented to participate in research allowed researchers to identify genetic alleles that vary in association with participants’ beat synchronization ability.
“The large number of consented study participants offered a unique opportunity for our group to capture even small genetic signals,” said David Hinds, PhD, a research fellow and statistical geneticist at 23andMe.
“These findings represent a leap forward for scientific understanding of the links between genetics and musicality.”
First author Maria Niarchou, PhD, research assistant professor in the Department of Medicine, said the study findings “made new connections between the genetic and neural architecture of musical rhythm, thus improving our understanding of how our genomes tune our brains to the beat of the music.”
Funding: The work was supported in part by an NIH Director’s New Innovator award #DP2HD098859.
About this genetics research news
Author: Craig Boerner
Source: Vanderbilt University
Contact: Craig Boerner – Vanderbilt University
Image: The image is in the public domain
Original Research: Open access.
“Genome-wide association study of musical beat synchronization demonstrates high polygenicity” by Reyna Gordon et al. Nature Human Behavior
Abstract
Genome-wide association study of musical beat synchronization demonstrates high polygenicity
Moving in synchrony to the beat is a fundamental component of musicality. Here we conducted a genome-wide association study to identify common genetic variants associated with beat synchronization in 606,825 individuals.
Beat synchronization exhibited a highly polygenic architecture, with 69 loci reaching genome-wide significance (P < 5 × 10−8) and single-nucleotide-polymorphism-based heritability (on the liability scale) of 13%–16%.
Heritability was enriched for genes expressed in brain tissues and for fetal and adult brain-specific gene regulatory elements, underscoring the role of central-nervous-system-expressed genes linked to the genetic basis of the trait.
We performed validations of the self-report phenotype (through separate experiments) and of the genome-wide association study (polygenic scores for beat synchronization were associated with patients algorithmically classified as musicians in medical records of a separate biobank).
Genetic correlations with breathing function, motor function, processing speed and chronotype suggest shared genetic architecture with beat synchronization and provide avenues for new phenotypic and genetic explorations.
