Kicking off BGA 2026 in an unexpectedly warm Amsterdam! Looking forward to three days of amazing science with fantastic people in our lovely city ❌❌❌

Is there a link between listening to music and mental health? @laurawesseldijk.bsky.social, Fredrik Ullén, and Miriam A. Mosing found that the connection is not as clear-cut. Read the full paper in Journal of Affective Disorders Reports: doi.org/10.1016/j.jadr.2026.101066

Thank you @rafaelahlskog.bsky.social and @aysuo.bsky.social for having me and for the opportunity to discuss our work! Check out the podcast in the quoted tweet below, and check out the paper we discussed here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Big news! @dr-appie.bsky.social returns to Born and Raised this week, and besides talking about how social inequality and genetic structure affect each other, he also has a cool surprise for us! Can you guess what it is?

The question I get most after talks about music and mental health: "But what about people who just listen to music?" Most of us never pick up an instrument, we engage with music through listening... So we studied it. New paper on music listening, mental health & genetics 🎵 doi.org/10.1016/j.ja...

In this week's episode, we talk to @laurawesseldijk.bsky.social about genetics, musicality, metal, mental health. But more importantly, we finally uncover @dr-appie.bsky.social's secret music career and learn about Laura's childhood playing trombone on a horse while doing a headstand??

omg it's laura wesseldijk, I love laura wesseldijk!

There was a lot of laughter during this conversation and a few secret confessions... But we also had some great discussions about musicality, genetics, Beethoven and public outreach, mental health, and music genres... Thank you @rafaelahlskog.bsky.social and @aysuo.bsky.social for having me! 🎶

There appears to be an unusually large overlap between social science genetics and metal fandom. Had so much fun having this conversation with @aysuo.bsky.social and Laura Wesseldijk!

⚠️ This BGA has turned out to be exceptionally popular with unprecedented numbers of submissions and people wanting to attend. We are now holding a waiting list for non-speakers (this includes symposia Chairs and Discussants) who have not yet registered.

✏️ Registration for BGA 2026 has officially opened! You can register using the following link: 174286.aanmelder.nl/registration If you submitted an abstract, you should have received an e-mail on this last week. If this is not the case, please let us know.

Looking forward to this year's Behavior Genetics Association (BGA) conference, in my hometown of Amsterdam! Deadline for abstracts is next week, February 16th: bga.org/content.aspx...

Abstract submission for the #BGA2026 in Amsterdam (NL), is now open! Oral and Poster Abstract submission: app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/80641.... Symposia abstract submission (symposium chairs only): app.oxfordabstracts.com/events/76614....

We did dance and mental health research 💃🕺 Professional, but not recreational dancers, have higher risk for mental health problems (anxiety, depression, emotional exhaustion). Dance achievement was more heritable in females (60%) than males (29%) 🧬 doi.org/10.1016/j.ss... @ae.mpg.de

For more context, see also the @nature.com News & Views article about this work, where I unpack what it means when genetic risk for psychiatric disorders overlaps with normal-range traits, including some positive associations with education-related outcomes: rdcu.be/eT4U7

First time on Bsky and first big announcement! I am excited to announce that our new study explaining the missing heritability of many phenotypes using WGS data from ~347,000 UK Biobank participants has just been published in @Nature. Our manuscript is here: www.nature.com/articles/s41....

With sequencing of Hitler's DNA making headlines, time for a reminder: analysing a polygenic score from a dead historically-significant figure won't give new insights into that person's behaviour. In a brief paper last year, we used Beethoven's genome to directly illustrate the fallacies involved.🧪👇

Loved hosting @essgn.bsky.social in Oxford including @dr-appie.bsky.social & family (& the rest of the ESSGN family as well) - read the post and links below to hear about this great event

The largest study on late life virginity, based on >400k individuals, out now in @pnas.org Open access link: pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Shoutout to shared first author @laurawesseldijk.bsky.social ❤️ Thread below 👇🏽

Some people call it a minefield. Others call it dangerous, even irresponsible. I call it the most promising field in life sciences. My love letter to social science genetics: communities.springernature.com/posts/a-love...

All cats are scientists, I will not be taking questions at this time.

Link to walk-up songs picked by attendees from the Musicality Genomics Consortium in 2023. I won't release who's who. Only unlinked suspects @profsimonfisher.bsky.social @musiccognition.bsky.social @mehr.nz @dr-appie.bsky.social @laurawesseldijk.bsky.social ... open.spotify.com/playlist/7rU...

Extremely excited to share the first effort of the Revived Genomics of Personality Consortium: A highly-powered, comprehensive GWAS of the Big Five personality traits in 1.14 million participants from 46 cohorts. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Ik sprak lang met @dr-appie.bsky.social, over genen, over maatschappelijke ongelijkheid en zelfs over Dzjengis Khan... voor @nrcwetenschap.bsky.social www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

🎵 Why do some people enjoy #music more than others? New findings published in @naturecomms.bsky.social show that our capacity to enjoy music is partly inherited, with 54% of music enjoyment variability linked to #DNA differences: doi.org/10.1038/s414... @mpi-nl.bsky.social @ki.se #BehaviorGenetics

Does your music style preference say something about your well-being? Most likely not! We tested 19 music genres, of which only 4 were related to well-being, with genetic analyses showing no causality. Great work by master student Anastasiia Bratchenko! 🎶 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Debunking “nature versus nurture”, a thread. Different people in a population carry variations in their DNA; the science of genetics makes it possible to assess if/how that correlates with individual differences in any observable trait, from medical conditions to aspects of cognition/behaviour.🧪1/9

Music science offers multiple examples of nature/nurture interplay. Here’s just one, from @laurawesseldijk.bsky.social. An enriched childhood environment is associated with higher music achievement in adulthood. But such effects are amplified in people who have a genetic predisposition. 8/9 [More 👇]

Did you get a chance to read the thread on our new @naturehumbehav.bsky.social paper on SES yet? If not, don't worry, I have something better for you! Check out this comic by the amazing @lizahaart.bsky.social Complete comic: communities.springernature.com/posts/are-we... Or in this thread 👇🏾

In every civilization, people end up sorted into levels of socio-economic status (SES). We explore the history, present, and future of scientific research on the complicated relationship between SES and DNA in @naturehumbehav.bsky.social💰🧬🎓 Link: rdcu.be/efacK Thread below 👇🏽

“What an odd thing“ wrote Oliver Sacks “to see an entire species playing with listening to meaningless tonal patterns, preoccupied for much of their time by what they call ‘music’...“. Our new paper, led by ace student @giacomobignardi.bsky.social, unpacks this puzzle from a genetic perspective. 🧪

In the Feb 2025 issue of @naturehumbehav.bsky.social, we integrate data from largescale genome scans of dyslexia & rhythm skills, as a novel way to study biological overlaps between human traits related to language & musicality. Just one part of the excellent PhD work of @gokberkalagoz.bsky.social.🧪

🚨PLEASE SHARE: Senior reseach post: come and work at the IEU with Gib Hemani and @mendelrandom.bsky.social on Mendelian randomization, become my co-worker :) – research posts with closing date 5th February 2025.

Genomic advances offer a novel route for investigating biological overlaps between musicality- and language-related traits. Here's a nice blog by my fab co-author Reyna Gordon, not (yet) on Bluesky, in which she breaks down our recently published @naturehumbehav.bsky.social paper on this topic. 🧪

My contribution to the Christmas dinner: an almond paste puff pastry roll with one gluten-free DNA strand. It was delicious 🎅🏽

The Max Planck Society @maxplanck.de shares 12 highlights of 2024 research across diverse fields, including first photo of a star beyond the Milky Way, sequences of oldest modern human genomes, a wild orangutan treating wounds with a medicinal plant, + our paper on genes, musicality & Beethoven: 🧪

In a @currentbiology.bsky.social paper earlier this year, led by @laurawesseldijk.bsky.social, we analysed Beethoven’s genome with a polygenic index related to musicality, as a way to communicate limits of genetic predictions at the individual level & the complexity of links between DNA & behaviour: