Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · 22d

Big thanks to all our co-authors, and special kudos to @everhoef.bsky.social! @profsimonfisher.bsky.social @luciadehoyos.bsky.social Fenja Schlag, Jeffrey van der Ven, Philip Dale, Evan Kidd Mitchell Olislagers

2

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · 22d

Motor abilities in young infants were genetically linked to self-care/symbolic actions in older infants, and, independently, self-care/symbolic actions were linked to infant/toddler language, consistent with ‘gateway’ theories where motor achievements provide social learning opportunities.

1 3

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · 22d

Our work on genetic links across infant motor behaviour, self-care/symbolic actions, and emerging language abilities has been published, with first author @everhoef.bsky.social ! doi.org/10.1111/jcpp...
Developing language within a developing body!
@mpi-nl.bsky.social

<em>Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry</em> | ACAMH Pediatric Journal | Wiley Online Library

Background Mastering gross motor abilities in early infancy and culturally defined actions (e.g. self-care routines) in late infancy can initiate cascading developmental changes that affect language...

doi.org

1 7

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Sep 8

As part of our meta-regression GWAS (preprint doi.org/10.1101/2025...), our PGS predict variation in social context, across outcomes, informants, and, largely, developmental stages, allowing for contextual correlations screens, giving new insight into shared trajectories with mental health.

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Sep 8

The strongest signal found within our social behaviour meta-regression GWAS (doi.org/10.1101/2025...) resided within the CADM2 gene, associated with self-reported (low) prosocial behaviour at ages 9-14 years.

2

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Sep 8

Our genome-wide meta-regression of social behaviour is out as a preprint! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Wonderful @eagle-genetics.bsky.social work with first author @luciadehoyos.bsky.social!
We model and predict genetic variation according to social context: outcomes, informants and age!

1 6

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Jul 4

No. Of course not! We just use scientific wording. It means: if children sing and hum and clap while young, they may achieve better speech later on; the PGS for rhythmicity is a means to verify this link using data based on hundreds of thousands independent people that could clap to a beat.

1

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Jul 4

Yes, we know, polygenetic overlap is small, that is inherent in these sorts of analyses. However, genetic analyses are done here to add validity to phenotypic analyses. Our genetically informed SEM recaptures our phenotypic SEM quite well, and the phenotypic links are not so small.

1

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Jul 3

We show that preschool musicality is related to school-age speech-related communication and is partially captured by PGS for rhythmicity. Without claiming causality, the identified links are directionally consistent with development and unrelated to cognition/proxies of EA.

3

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Jul 3

It was such fun work @luciadehoyos.bsky.social, Ellen Verhoef, ‪@aysuo.bsky.social‬, Janne Vermeulen, Celeste Figaroa, @profsimonfisher.bsky.social, Reyna Gordon and @miriamlense.bsky.social‬!

Thanks for your thoughts and contributions!

2

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Jul 3

Just out: “Preschool musicality is associated with school-age communication abilities through genes related to rhythmicity.”
doi.org/10.1038/s41539-025-00329-y
Big thanks to the first author, amazing @luciadehoyos.bsky.social, and all our co-authors!
@mpi-nl.bsky.social

Preschool musicality is associated with school-age communication abilities through genes related to rhythmicity - npj Science of Learning

npj Science of Learning - Preschool musicality is associated with school-age communication abilities through genes related to rhythmicity

doi.org

1 1 3

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Feb 18

I am absolutely delighted to work together with @yanlinzhou.bsky.social at @mpi-nl.bsky.social as part of her MSCA award, extending collaborations with dieterwolke.bsky.social, @warwicklng.bsky.social and @R2D2mh. Congratulations on your award, Yanlin!

5

Reposted by Beate St Pourcain

FinnGen @finngen.bsky.social · Dec 5

Million Veteran Program & FinnGen teams are pleased to release v1 meta-analysis of MVP, FinnGen and UKBB GWAS data. This first version includes ~300 binary disease definitions across >1.5 M individuals.
Browse scans at: mvp-ukbb.finngen.fi

1 24 48

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Oct 24

Please join us today for our recorded webinar at adhdeurope.eu "Deciphering genetic links between early language abilities & ADHD" at 15.00 CET!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxT1...

Ellen Verhoef and I will discuss our recently published @eagle-genetics.bsky.social work!
tinyurl.com/yx5jht2y

Deciphering genetic links between early language abilities & ADHD

YouTube video by Broadcasting ADHD Europe

www.youtube.com

1 5

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Sep 20

www.themarginalian.org/2014/03/28/d...

I wish we could say this one day about peer review.

How to Criticize with Kindness: Philosopher Daniel Dennett on the Four Steps to Arguing Intelligently

“Just how charitable are you supposed to be when criticizing the views of an opponent?”

www.themarginalian.org

2

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Jul 11

I am so proud of my PhD student @luciadehoyos.bsky.social at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics NL, who won the Outstanding Associate Member Oral Presentation Award #BGA2024 for her work on the social behaviour meta-GWAS in the @eagle-genetics.bsky.social consortium

7

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Apr 17

Fancy working with us on the genetics (epigenetics) of early language development and social abilities?
We have an open 4-year, fully funded PhD position starting 1 October 2024:
www.mpi.nl/career-educa...

2

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Mar 13

We are depositing the meta-GWAS summary statistics of early vocabulary size into The Language Archive (TLA) and hope they will spark future research.
www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S000...

t.co/5f0SFNf0mb

2

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Feb 28

That's a shame! It still puzzles me how they got it published given N.

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Feb 28

Could you simulate the data based on their input parameters? The size of SEs given the low N should be enormous and demonstrate the lack of reliable signal.

1

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Feb 27

Our SFARI-funded work “Structural models of genome-wide covariance identify multiple common dimensions in autism” is just out in Nat Commun! Congratulations to the first author @luciadehoyos.bsky.social, THANK YOU to all co-authors, participants and @simonsfoundation.org! tinyurl.com/yuy6465x

2 9

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Feb 25

Congratulations! Amazing news!

1

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Feb 19

Our study identified genetic associations between children’s early vocabulary size and later-life ADHD, literacy, and general cognition. However, these associations changed dynamically across the first three years of life.
tinyurl.com/bdzxbxv8

2 2

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Feb 19

Wonderful news! Our work
@MPI_NL showing that infant/toddler vocabulary size is genetically linked to ADHD, literacy, and cognition has been published in Biol Psychiatry tinyurl.com/bdzxbxv8 Big THANK YOU to #EAGLE_GENETICS co-authors & cohorts and first author Ellen Verhoef

Genome-wide Analyses of Vocabulary Size in Infancy and Toddlerhood: Associations With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Literacy, and Cognition-Related Traits

The number of words children produce (expressive vocabulary) and understand (receptive vocabulary) changes rapidly during early development, partially due to genetic factors. Here, we performed a meta...

tinyurl.com

Beate St Pourcain @bstpourcain.bsky.social · Jan 18

We are looking for a new team member interested in ASD and quantitative genetics to join our group as part of the R2D2 project. We will combine analyses on social behaviour within the EAGLE consortium with studies of ASD in SPARK. Interested? Have a look here:

Postdoctoral Research Scientist Position in Statistical Genomics/Genetic Epidemiology | Max Planck I...

tinyurl.com

1 3