Heritability and Association of Natural Language with Health Outcomes
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Heritability and Association of Natural Language with Health Outcomes
IRAS ID
206759
Contact name
Kristin Nicodemus
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Edinburgh
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 6 months, 1 days
Research summary
We will seek to understand if aspects of naturally spoken language and written language are influenced by genetics. To do so, we will collect speech data by telephone and online from volunteers from GS:SFHS. Then, we can see if measures of speech such as the pitch, pause length and word choice seem to be more similar in people who are part of the same family versus unrelated people, which is called heritability. If we find that these measures are heritable, then we can look at the genetic data already collected from these volunteers and see if we can find genes that relate to various aspects of speech. In addition, differences between people that can be measured by speech may also help us to better understand some health outcomes, such as mental ill health, Parkinson’s disease or dementia. Using data previously collected by Generation Scotland (not by the NHS) we will measure how these natural language measures differ in individuals with mental illnesses such as depression versus individuals who do not have a mental illness.\n\nWe will ask people to participate in a phone survey and to respond to questions while their speech is being recorded and/or to take part in a brief online task. The phone survey will be conducted by an automated call centre, and will not ask for any information that may be embarrassing or sensitive. The online task will ask participants to generate up to 3 words to a cue word and type them in to a text box. The speech/response data will then be analysed and paired with previously-collected information from GS:SFHS. The phone survey will last approximately 25 minutes. \n
REC name
North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 1
REC reference
16/NS/0129
Date of REC Opinion
9 Feb 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion