Music is universal, but there is also a substantial variation in musical interests, engagement, and skill. Scientific studies of musicians during the last decades have significantly advanced our knowledge about the human brain and its impressive capacity to acquire new skills and competencies. For example, in recent years, twin studies of musical engagement have made important breakthroughs in understanding how skill learning depends on an interplay between our genes and the environment. However, little is still known about the gene-environment (GE) interplay behind professional levels of musical expertise. Also, molecular genetic research on music is still in its infancy. This project aims to address this knowledge gap by providing a thorough genetic characterization of musical working memory (WM) and other music-related aspects, linking genetic and phenotypic data of expert musicians.

We will: 

• Create a database of musicians with phenotypic data on music-related behavior (working memory, music achievement, performance anxiety) and genotype information. We will invite professional musicians participating in Study 2 to complete a short survey and donate their saliva for genotyping. We will collect saliva samples and securely deliver and store them at the biobank for DNA extraction and genotyping at the Karolinska Institute (KI) in Stockholm. Then, the derived variables (e.g., PGSs) will be sent back to the MPIEA for analysis under the current data transfer agreement between KI and MPIEA. Phenotypic data include self-report information on music practice and achievement (Creative Achievement Questionnaire; Carson et al., 2005), personality (Big Five Inventory, John et al., 1991), performance anxiety (Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory – K-MPAI; Chang-Arana et al., 2018), work-related pressure (Achievement Pressure Scale), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD-7; Spitzer et al., 2006), and flow proneness (General Flow Proneness Scale; Elnes et al., 2023).
• Administer the auditory WM CAT paradigms developed and validated in Study 1 to a cohort of participants in the Swedish Twin Registry, managed by the Karolinska Institute. 

This will allow us to: 

• We will test a number of hypotheses about GE interplay in professional musical expertise using polygenic score (PGS)- based analyses. We will test if genetic liabilities for traits important for musical engagement at lower levels of expertise influence professional achievement and musical WM ability. We will also investigate GE interplay underlying performance anxiety (PA), with a specific focus on the interplay between genetic risk factors and known protective factors.
• Contribute to genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of musicality. In a recent collaborative effort, we performed the first GWAS of a musical phenotype. However, high musical expertise is poorly represented in existing cohorts, and a limitation of this GWAS is that the phenotype mainly discriminates at low levels of expertise. The data collected here will fill this gap and substantially increase the power of future GWASs.