MUSICAL ability is linked to gene variants that help control social bonding. The finding adds weight to the notion that music developed to cement human relationships.
Irma Järvelä of the University of Helsinki, Finland, and her colleagues recruited people from 19 families with at least one professional musician in each and tested their aptitudes for distinguishing rhythm, pitch and musical pattern. These abilities – which are thought to be innate and unteachable – ran in families, consistent with their being under genetic control.
When the researchers scanned the volunteers’ genes, they found that two variants of the gene AVPR1A correlated…
