Polygenic Associations Between Motor Behavior, Neuromotor Traits, and Active Music Engagement in Four Cohorts

Active music engagement, that is, playing a musical instrument or singing, may be protective of motor function decline in aging. Although playing a musical instrument may transfer to benefits in motor function, it is also possible that the genetic architecture of motor behavior and the motor system brain structures may influence active music engagement. This study investigated whether polygenic scores (PGSs) for five behavioral motor traits, 12 structural brain traits, and seven rate-of-change in brain structure traits trained from existing genome-wide association studies predict active music engagement in four independent cohorts: the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA; N = 22,198), Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS; N = 4605), Vanderbilt's BioVU Repository (BioVU; N = 6150), and Vanderbilt's Online Musicality Study (OM; N = 1559). Results were meta-analyzed for each PGS main effect across outcomes and cohorts, revealing that PGS for a faster walking pace was associated with higher amounts of active music engagement. Within CLSA, a higher PGS for walking pace was associated with greater odds of engaging with music. Our findings suggest a shared genetic architecture between motor function and active music engagement. Future research should consider the genetic underpinnings of motor behavior when evaluating the effects of music engagement on motor function.