Miriam A Mosing

Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics | MPGAESTHETIC · Cognitive Neuropsychology

Objectives: The educational gradient in late-life health is well established. Despite this, there are still ambiguities concerning the role of underlying confounding by genetic influences and gene-environment (GE) interplay. Here we investigate the role of educational factors (attained and genetic propensities) on health and mortality in late life...

The first part of this review provides a brief historical background of behavior genetic research and how twin and genotype data can be utilized to study genetic influences on individual differences in human behavior. We then review the field of music genetics, from its emergence to large scale twin studies and the recent, first molecular genetic s...

Uncovering the genetic underpinnings of musical ability and engagement is a foundational step for exploring their wide-ranging associations with cognition, health, and neurodevelopment. Prior studies have focused on using twin and family designs, demonstrating moderate heritability of musical phenotypes. The current study used genome-wide complex t...

While music engagement is often regarded as beneficial for mental health, some studies report higher risk for depression and anxiety among musicians. This study investigates whether shared underlying genetic influences (genetic pleiotropy) or gene-environment interaction could be at play in the music-mental health association using measured genotyp...

Musicians with absolute pitch (AP) can name the pitch of a musical note in isolation. Expression of this unusual ability is thought to be influenced by heritability, early music training and current practice. However, our understanding of factors shaping its expression is hampered by testing and scoring methods that treat AP as dichotomous. These f...

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 pat...

The relationship between pitch-naming ability and childhood onset of music training is well established and thought to reflect both genetic predisposition and music training during a critical period. However, the importance of the amount of practice during this period has not been investigated. In a population sample of twins (N = 1447, 39% male, 3...

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...

Singing ability is a complex human skill influenced by genetic and environmental factors, the relative contributions of which remain unknown. Currently, genetically informative studies using objective measures of singing ability across a range of tasks are limited. We administered a validated online singing tool to measure performance across three...

Major depression (MD) is a complex, heterogeneous neuropsychiatric disorder. An early age at onset of major depression (AAO-MD) has been associated with more severe illness, psychosis, and suicidality. However, not much is known about what contributes to individual variation in this important clinical characteristic. This study sought to investigat...

Data from the Interplay of Genes and Environment across Multiple Studies (IGEMS) consortium were used to examine predictions of different models of gene-by-environment interaction to understand how genetic variance in self-rated health (SRH) varies at different levels of financial strain. A total of 11,359 individuals from 10 twin studies in Austra...

Focus and outcomes for participants Long periods between exposures and outcomes pose a number of challenges for life course epidemiological research, including unmeasured confounding factors (e.g.; familial factors) and mediation by other covariates, which make it difficult to unequivocally establish associations let alone causality. In this sympos...

Experts in domains such as music or sports often start training early. It has been suggested that this may reflect a sensitive period in childhood for skill acquisition. However, it could be that familial factors (e.g., genetics) contribute to the association. Here, we examined the effect of age of onset of musical training on musical aptitude and...

Background As common risk factors of dementia, nine factors (low education, hearing loss, obesity, hypertension, smoking, depression, physical inactivity, diabetes and social isolation) were proposed. However, the joint impact of these factors on incident dementia is still uncertain; hence, we aimed to examine this impact. Methods We conducted a c...

Music listening plays an important role in the daily lives of many. It remains unclear what explains variation in how much time people spend listening to music and whether music listening improves musical auditory discrimination skills. In 10,780 Swedish twin individuals, data were available on hours of music listening, musical engagement and music...

While timing and rhythm-related phenotypes are heritable, the human genome variations underlying these traits are not yet well-understood. We conducted a genome-wide association study to identify common genetic variants associated with a self-reported musical rhythm phenotype in 606,825 individuals. Rhythm exhibited a highly polygenic architecture...

Studies of expertise have traditionally had a strong focus on the role of one single factor, i.e. long-term deliberate practice, for expert performance. However, recent empirical and theoretical work strongly suggests that expertise is a function of many variables that may have practice-independent effects on performance, but also moderate the effi...

Background: Being adopted early in life, an indicator of exposure to early-life adversity, has been consistently associated with poor mental health outcomes in adulthood. Such associations have largely been attributed to stressful environments, e.g., exposure to trauma, abuse, or neglect. However, mental health is substantially heritable, and gene...

The Interplay of Genes and Environment across Multiple Studies (IGEMS) is a consortium of 18 twin studies from 5 different countries (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, United States, and Australia) established to explore the nature of gene–environment (GE) interplay in functioning across the adult lifespan. Fifteen of the studies are longitudinal, with fol...

Humans are social animals that experience intense suffering when they perceive a lack of social connection. Modern societies are experiencing an epidemic of loneliness. While the experience of loneliness is universally human, some people report experiencing greater loneliness than others. Loneliness is more strongly associated with mortality than o...

The association between active musical engagement (as leisure activity or professionally) and mental health is still unclear, with earlier studies reporting contrasting findings. Here we tested whether musical engagement predicts (1) a diagnosis of depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar or stress-related disorders based on nationwide patient r...

Objective: Neuroticism is associated with poor health outcomes, but its contribution to the accumulation of health deficits in old age, i.e. the frailty index, is largely unknown. We aimed to explore associations between neuroticism and frailty cross-sectionally and longitudinally, and to investigate the contribution of shared genetic influences....

Both genes (G) and the environment (E) are important for individual differences in expertise, but little is known about GE interactions underlying domain-specific achievement. Here we explored this issue in a large Swedish twin cohort (N = 6,610), using moderator modeling with musical expertise as a model domain. Specifically, we tested whether mus...

Objective: Neuroticism is associated with poor health outcomes, but its contribution to the accumulation of health deficits in old age, i.e. frailty, is largely unknown. We aimed to explore associations between neuroticism and frailty cross-sectionally and over up to 29 years, and to investigate the contribution of shared genetic influences. Method...

A bstract Humans are social animals that experience intense suffering when they perceive a lack of social connection. Modern societies are experiencing an epidemic of loneliness. While the experience of loneliness is universally human, some people report experiencing greater loneliness than others. Loneliness is more strongly associated with mortal...

Background There is evidence for long-lasting effects of birth characteristics on cognitive ability in childhood and adulthood. Further, low cognitive ability throughout the lifetime has been linked to age-related cognitive decline and dementia risk. However, little is known about the effects of birth characteristics on cognitive dysfunction late i...

Descriptive statistics for covariates. (DOCX)

Main analysis results without imputation using full sample: Cognitive impairment. (DOCX)

Main analysis results adjusting for within-pair birth order in the imputed datasets: Dementia diagnosis. (DOCX)

Main analysis results adjusting for within-pair birth order in the imputed datasets: Cognitive impairment. (DOCX)

Co-twin control analysis results adjusted for birth order. (DOCX)

ICD codes used to identify the different types of dementia. (DOCX)

Main analysis results only with individuals with all covariates: Dementia diagnosis. (DOCX)

Main analysis results only with individuals with all covariates: Cognitive impairment. (DOCX)

Main analysis results without imputation using full sample: Dementia diagnosis. (DOCX)

Though several studies show that genetic factors influence individual differences in musical engagement, aptitude and achievement, no study to date has investigated whether specialization among musically active individuals in terms of choice of instrument and genre is heritable. Using a large twin cohort, we explored whether individual differences...

Background: Genetic research on depression and burnout has focused mostly on adverse factors, although various aspects in daily life related to positive coping and well-being have been shown to potentially be protective. Using a large genetically informative sample, we aim explore the potential relationship between flow proneness and work-related d...

This chapter describes how the heritability of a trait can be estimated using data collected from pairs of twins. The principles of the classical twin design are described, followed by the assumptions, and some possible extensions of the design. In the second part of this chapter, two example scripts are presented and the basic steps for estimating...

We summarize key findings from the literature on neuroanatomical and functional correlates of expertise, concluding that expertise is related to macroanatomical properties of domain-relevant brain regions and ultrastructural properties of both the gray and the white matter. The consequence of these neural adaptations is a capacity for vastly more e...

Single item measures of Subjective well-being (SWB) are often superior to more objective clinical assessment for predicting an individuals’ morbidity and mortality, suggesting that SWB is a powerful predictor of future health. Little is known about the genetic architecture underlying this link between SWB and healthy aging. Recently, genetic polymo...

In the version of this article initially published, one of the affiliations listed for author Maciej Trzaskowski, to the Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Split, Split, Croatia, was included in error. The correct affiliation for this author is the Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensla...

Despite the commonly held belief that homosexual males and females are more creative compared to heterosexuals, empirical studies on homosexuality and its relationship to creativity have been sparse, often with questionable methodology and very small sample sizes, reporting mixed findings. No study till date has explored the associations described...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-innate-talent-a-myth/

Approximately half of the variation in wellbeing measures overlaps with variation in personality traits. Studies of non-human primate pedigrees and human twins suggest that this is due to common genetic influences. We tested whether personality polygenic scores for the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) domains and for item response theory (IRT) d...

The literature shows evidence for long-lasting effects of low birth weight (LBW) on many health outcomes, but little is known about effects on self-perceived health. Findings are mixed and studies are small, mostly focusing on LBW effects on health outcomes before adulthood. Further, as LBW and most health conditions including self-perceived health...

Very few genetic variants have been associated with depression and neuroticism, likely because of limitations on sample size in previous studies. Subjective well-being, a phenotype that is genetically correlated with both of these traits, has not yet been studied with genome-wide data. We conducted genome-wide association studies of three phenotype...

Males and females score differently on some personality traits, but the underlying etiology of these differences is not well understood. This study examined genetic, environmental, and prenatal hormonal influences on individual differences in personality masculinity–femininity (M-F). We used Big-Five personality inventory data of 9,520 Swedish twin...

Why are some people so much more successful than other people in music, sports, games, business, and other complex domains? This question is the subject of one of psychology's oldest debates. Over 20 years ago, Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Römer (1993) proposed that individual differences in performance in domains such as these largely reflect accum...

Scientific interest in expertise-superior performance within a specific domain-has a long history in psychology. Although there is a broad consensus that a long period of practice is essential for expertise, a long-standing controversy in the field concerns the importance of other variables such as cognitive abilities and genetic factors. According...

The idea of far transfer effects in the cognitive sciences has received much attention in recent years. One domain where far transfer effects have frequently been reported is music education, with the prevailing idea that music practice entails an increase in cognitive ability (IQ). While cross-sectional studies consistently find significant associ...

Music performance depends critically on precise processing of time. A common model behavior in studies of motor timing is isochronous serial interval production (ISIP), that is, hand/finger movements with a regular beat. ISIP accuracy is related to both music practice and intelligence. Here we present a study of these associations in a large twin c...

Although music is a universal feature of human culture, little is known about its origins and functions. A prominent theory of music evolution is the sexual selection hypothesis, which proposes that music evolved as a signal of genetic quality to potential mates. The sexual selection hypothesis offers several empirically testable predictions. First...

Little is known about reasons for individual differences in practice behavior – why do some individuals practice more than others? Here we explore personality related traits such as openness, motivation and flow proneness as well as IQ as potential predictors of music practice. Using a large Swedish twin cohort of more than 10,500 individuals we al...

AimMany individuals play an instrument or sing during childhood, but they often stop later in life. This study surveyed adults representative of the Swedish population about musical activities during childhood.Methods We asked 3,820 adults (65% women) aged from 27 to 54 from the Swedish Twin Registry, who took extra music lessons to those provided...

Musical aptitude is commonly measured using tasks that involve discrimination of different types of musical auditory stimuli. Performance on such different discrimination tasks correlates positively with each other and with intelligence. However, no study to date has explored these associations using a genetically informative sample to estimate und...

The relative importance of nature and nurture for various forms of expertise has been intensely debated. Music proficiency is viewed as a general model for expertise, and associations between deliberate practice and music proficiency have been interpreted as supporting the prevailing idea that long-term deliberate practice inevitably results in inc...

The hypothesis was tested that musical activities may contribute to the prevention of alexithymia. We tested whether musical creative achievement and musical practice are associated with lower alexithymia. 8000 Swedish twins aged 27-54 were studied. Alexithymia was assessed using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20. Musical achievement was rated on a...

We examine, in 6881 twin individuals, the psychometric properties of a new test (the Swedish Musical Discrimination Test, SMDT) that was developed to tap auditory discrimination of musical stimuli. The SMDT consists of three subtests measuring discrimination of melodies, rhythms, and single pitches, respectively. Mean test taking times for the subt...