Genetic Factors May Drive Relationship Between Musicality and Hearing Health

by Linda Kossof •

CLINICAL QUESTION

Can high degrees of human musicality be supportive of hearing health?

BOTTOM LINE

Integrating validated musicality phenotypes with biobank studies will accelerate research in musicality genomics, and, in turn, enhance

applications to hearing healthcare.

BACKGROUND: Age-related hearing loss (ARHL) is associated with an increased risk of falls, social isolation and loneliness, depression, cognitive decline, and dementia, underscoring the need for new tools for early risk detection and precision medicine in hearing health. The emergence of musicality genomics offers an opportunity to explore new research on musicality and hearing health.

STUDY DESIGN: Explanatory research

SETTING: Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville

SYNOPSIS: Researchers proposed that since musicality traits likely share underlying genetic and sensorineural architecture with hearing traits, higher music engagement, musical ability, and music enjoyment levels should be negatively associated with ARHL. Referencing multiple lines of evidence to support testing of this hypothesis, they point out that musicians often show enhanced speech perception in noisy environments, possibly due to 1) improved executive function or auditory working memory, 2) improved neural efficiency underlying basic sound encoding, 3) improved auditory spatial skills, and/or 4) improved multisensory integration between visual and motor systems. The authors also note that while relationships between musicianship and hearing abilities are often interpreted as causal, potential genetic factors driving these results cannot be ruled out, and they cite a genome-wide association study concluding that greater beat synchronization was genetically correlated with lower self-reported hearing impairment. They report on efforts of the international Musicality Genomics Consortium to accelerate research in the field to enhance applications to hearing healthcare. Finally, the authors state that the Musical Abilities, Pleiotropy, Language, and Environment framework predicts that human musicality and communication traits share some genetic architecture, with downstream biological effects on sensorimotor and sensorineural auditory mechanisms.

CITATION: Nayak S, et al. Musicality as a Health-Relevant Factor for Hearing Outcomes. JAMA Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2024. doi: 10.1001/jamaoto.2024.4157.