{"doi":"10.1111/nyas.14964","title":"Exploring the genetics of rhythmic perception and musical engagement in the Vanderbilt Online Musicality Study","abstract":"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 trait analysis and polygenic score (PGS) approaches utilizing genotype data to examine genetic influences on two musicality traits (rhythmic perception and music engagement) in N = 1792 unrelated adults in the Vanderbilt Online Musicality Study. Meta-analyzed heritability estimates (including a replication sample of Swedish individuals) were 31% for rhythmic perception and 12% for self-reported music engagement. A PGS derived from a recent study on beat synchronization ability predicted both rhythmic perception (β = 0.11) and music engagement (β = 0.19) in our sample, suggesting that genetic influences underlying self-reported beat synchronization ability also influence individuals' rhythmic discrimination aptitude and the degree to which they engage in music. Cross-trait analyses revealed a modest contribution of PGSs from several nonmusical traits (from the cognitive, personality, and circadian chronotype domains) to individual differences in musicality (β = -0.06 to 0.07). This work sheds light on the complex relationship between the genetic architecture of musical rhythm processing, beat synchronization, music engagement, and other nonmusical traits.","journal":"Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences","year":2023,"id":333059,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":23,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9427,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":638291,"name":"Peyton L. Coleman","orcid":"0000-0001-5388-6886","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":941175,"name":"Youjia Wang","orcid":"0000-0001-6485-3721","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":449632,"name":"Rachana Nitin","orcid":"0000-0002-3331-1580","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":461620,"name":"Lauren E. Petty","orcid":"0000-0003-1619-6303","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1040141,"name":"Catherine T. Bush","orcid":"0000-0003-0821-3388","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":89936,"name":"Miriam A Mosing","orcid":"0000-0003-2049-125X","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":89934,"name":"Laura W. Wesseldijk","orcid":"0000-0002-9900-0371","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":897431,"name":"Fredrik Ullén","orcid":"0000-0002-2974-9256","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":16108,"name":"Jennifer E. Below","orcid":"0000-0002-6372-6402","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":103608,"name":"Nancy J. Cox","orcid":"0000-0001-9315-0830","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":244448,"name":"Reyna L. Gordon","orcid":"0000-0003-1643-6979","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":486269,"name":"Daniel E. Gustavson","orcid":"0000-0002-1470-4928","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":67,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:09:35.125543Z","pmid":"36718543","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}