Convergent evidence for the molecular basis of musical traits

Abstract

To obtain aggregate evidence for the molecular basis of musical abilities and the effects of music, we integrated gene-level data from 105 published studies across multiple species including humans, songbirds and several other animals and used a convergent evidence method to prioritize the top candidate genes. Several of the identified top candidate genes like EGR1, FOS, ARC, BDNF and DUSP1 are known to be activity-dependent immediate early genes that respond to sensory and motor stimuli in the brain. Several other top candidate genes like MAPK10, SNCA, ARHGAP24, TET2, UBE2D3, FAM13A and NUDT9 are located on chromosome 4q21-q24, on the candidate genomic region for music abilities in humans. Functional annotation analyses showed the enrichment of genes involved in functions like cognition, learning, memory, neuronal excitation and apoptosis, long-term potentiation and CDK5 signaling pathway. Interestingly, all these biological functions are known to be essential processes underlying learning and memory that are also fundamental for musical abilities including recognition and production of sound. In summary, our study prioritized top candidate genes related to musical traits.

Genome-wide association study of musical beat synchronization demonstrates high polygenicity

“…Gene-based association analyses performed with MAGMA yielded 203 genes that surpassed the threshold of p<3×10 −6 (Supplementary Table 3). The top two genes are: CCSER1 , in proximity to genes previously associated with musicality 21 , and VRK2 (converging with the top locus identified in our SNP-based association analyses).…”

“…At the same time, the other 36 loci coincided with robust associations in the GWAS catalogue for a variety of cognitive, neuropsychological, and health traits (Table 2, Supplementary Table 12), indicating that rhythm shares genetic architecture with many other traits. We replicated previous findings implicating location 4q22.1 in musicality-related traits 12,23 ( CCSER1 was the top-associated gene in our MAGMA analysis) but did not find support for previous gene associations from prior candidate-gene, linkage, and GWAS studies with relatively small samples 21 , potentially due to well-known methodological problems with these methods particularly when applied to small samples 57 .…”

“…We also examined potential replication of genetic associations with musicality in humans from prior reports (28 genes were selected including 26 reported in meta-analysis by 21 , and additionally, GATA2 and PCDH7 22 and UGT8 23 . Although none of the genes reached statistical significance (Supplementary Table 4, Supplementary Note), several are located near CCSER1 in the 4q22-24 region.…”

Musicality as an Upbeat to Music: Introduction and Research Agenda

“…A comparative approach to musicality faces numerous challenges, including the identification of candidate skills and credible means of distinguishing biological from cultural contributions to human musicality. Nevertheless, consensus is growing that musicality has deep biological foundations, based on accumulating evidence for the involvement of genetic variation (Liu et al, 2016;Oikkonen, Onkamo, Järvelä, & Kanduri, 2016;Peretz, 2016). Recent advances in molecular technologies provide an effective way of exploring these biological foundations.…”

Brain Shaped by Music Performance: Cognitive Effects and Genetic Approaches

“…Müziğin evrimine dair çalışmalar günümüzde devam etmektedir ve bu bağlamda hayvan ve insan çalışmaları yapılmıştır. Elbette insanlar ve hayvanlar arasında müzik üretimi bakımından benzerlikler mevcuttur, örneğin her iki tip müzik üretimi de duyguların dinleyene iletilmesini barındırır, fakat insanın enstrüman aracılığıyla oldukça kompleks melodiler çıkartması ve hatta birden fazla enstrümanı bir araya getirerek müzikal ürünler çıkartması eşsiz bir durumdur (41,42).…”