2024-03-26 00:56:15
Genetically brilliant? The famous composer Ludwig van Beethoven is considered an exceptional musical talent – but what does this show in his genetic makeup? A research team has now examined this in more detail. The surprising result: At least in a common marker for musicality, Beethoven’s genome is apparently not very outstanding. In terms of this polygenic index, the composer is only in the upper midfield, as the team reports. However, this genetic marker only captures a small aspect of musicality.
Whether Mozart, Beethoven or Bach: Many famous composers are considered exceptional talents with unique musicality. But what makes them so special? Are certain genes responsible for the outstanding musical abilities of such people? After all, twin studies show that around 42 percent of musicality is hereditary. A genome-wide association study also recently identified 69 gene variants that give us a good sense of rhythm and also promote other aspects of musicality.
Comparative look into Beethoven’s genome
This is where Beethoven and his genetic makeup come into play: The DNA preserved in some of the composer’s locks of hair has already given researchers their first insights into Beethoven’s genome, including, in particular, the genetic basis of his illnesses. “We have now extended this approach to musicality,” say Laura Wesseldijk and her colleagues. To do this, they looked for the 69 gene variants for musicality and a sense of rhythm in the composer’s genome.
“We determined this polygenic index for Beethoven and then compared it with two population-based data sets from thousands of modern people,” Wesseldijk and her team explain the procedure. A good 5,600 people from a Swedish twin registry and 6,150 people from a US genome database served as comparison groups, each of whom was tested for sense of rhythm and musicality.
“We deliberately did not make a prediction regarding where Beethoven’s polygenic index would lie because our main aim with our study was to show the limitations of this approach,” emphasize the researchers.
Beethoven’s polygenic index of rhythm and musicality compared to the 5,600 people in the twin study. © Wesseldijk et al./Current Biology, CC-by 4.0
Genetically good, but not outstanding
The genome comparisons revealed something surprising: Beethoven’s polygenic musicality index is in the ninth and eleventh percentile of the two populations. This means that the composer has more music-specific gene variants than around 90 percent of the comparison people, but this position is not outstanding. As Wesseldijk and her team determined, almost ten percent of the comparison subjects have a higher index than him.
“At first glance, these results seem quite confusing,” writes the research team. “Beethoven, one of the most famous musicians in history, does not perform particularly well here.” But why? “Obviously it would be wrong to conclude from the results of the polygenic index alone that Beethoven’s musical abilities were not particularly remarkable following all,” explains the team. Because the musician’s compositions prove the opposite.
Why genes lie
But what then is the reason for Beethoven’s poor genetic result? As Wesseldijk and her colleagues explain, there are several reasons for this: On the one hand, polygenic indices like the one examined here only ever capture a small fraction of the genetic effects because they only capture common gene variants, not rare ones. “Secondly, PGIs are population-level approximations that can only make partially accurate predictions for a single individual,” says the team.
And finally the most important thing: “Musicality is not a single trait, but a multi-component suite of skills,” explain the researchers. These abilities, in turn, are based on a mixture of various genetic factors, some of which only influence certain aspects of musicality. Beethoven’s extraordinary musicality is therefore very likely due to genetic and social factors that lie outside the 69 gene variants tested here. (Current Biology, 2024; doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.01.025)
Quelle: Current Biology
March 26, 2024 – Nadja Podbregar
1711416833
#Beethovens #musicality #genes #Largescale #genetic #comparison #unexpected #answer
