About

Matt McGue is a Principal Investigator at the Minnesota Center for Twin and Family Research and holds the title of Regents Professor. His role involves leading research efforts within the center, which focuses on twin and family studies to understand various aspects of human development, behavior, and genetics. The center conducts a wide range of studies, including the Minnesota Twin Registry, and investigates topics such as social inequality, adolescent drinking, and midlife outcomes. McGue's work contributes to the understanding of genetic and environmental influences on behavior and health, utilizing comprehensive data collection and analysis methods to advance research in psychology and related fields.

Research topics

• Biology
• Genetics
• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Medicine
• Evolutionary biology
• Information Retrieval
• Demography
• Psychiatry
• Developmental psychology
• Internal medicine
• World Wide Web
• Endocrinology
• Statistics
• Geography
• Computational biology
• Psychoanalysis
• Gerontology
• Mathematics
• Data science
• Economics
• Environmental health
• Econometrics
• Telecommunications

Selected publications

• Adolescent nicotine use and adult psychoticism: A longitudinal co-twin control analysis

  OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) · 2026-01-06

  otherOpen access

  Nicotine use, a modifiable behavior, is associated with increased risk of psychotic symptoms (Gurillo et al., 2015). Longitudinal evidence showing that nicotine use is associated prospectively with future psychotic symptoms suggests a possible causal role of nicotine use in the etiology of psychosis (Jones et al., 2018; Mustonen et al., 2018). However, nicotine use is not isolated from other risk factors. For example, individuals who use nicotine are more likely to come from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds (Ávila-Burgos et al., 2023), use other drugs (e.g., cannabis) (Agrawal et al., 2011), and grow up in dysfunctional family environments (Banzer et al., 2017), suggesting links may reflect confounding by shared environmental and genetic risk factors. A recent study using co-twin comparisons to address this possibility, however, found evidence supporting a potential causal effect (Barkhuizen et al., 2019). However, this study used retrospective, relatively coarse self-report measures of nicotine use (e.g., no/light/heavy smoking), which are subject to the many well-documented sources of bias that reduce the accuracy of retrospective measures (e.g., normal forgetting, revisionist recall). Methodological research suggests that this reduction in accuracy may be particularly problematic in a twin study context, as exposure measurement error tends to bias within-twin-pair estimates more dramatically than corresponding unpaired associations (Frisell et al., 2012). To address these limitations, the proposed paper would test for evidence of a causal relationship between adolescent nicotine use and psychoticism using repeated, prospective self-report and interview assessments of adolescent nicotine use in five twin cohorts prospectively assessed over two decades. Analyses will compare twins from the same family to test whether the twin who uses more nicotine scores higher on our measure of psychoticism, on average, than their twin who reports less nicotine use. If associations between nicotine use and psychoticism are explained by shared familial confounds, this effect will be null. Significant within-twin-pair effects, on the other hand, would be consistent with, though insufficient for definitively establishing, causality.

  Publisher

• An Updated Polygenic Index Repository: Expanded Phenotypes, New Cohorts, and Improved Causal Inference

  Research Square · 2025-10-13

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Within- and between-family genetic effects on educational achievement vary across countries and ages

  Molecular Psychiatry · 2025-11-20 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Association of Recreational Cannabis Legalization with Frequency of Using Cannabis for Sleep

  Journal of Psychoactive Drugs · 2025-03-27 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  = .001). RCL was not associated with frequency of using alcohol or sleep medication for sleep, or with co-use of cannabis and other sleep aids. More research is needed to determine whether RCL leads to more frequent use of cannabis for sleep.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Within- and between-family genetic effects on educational achievement vary across countries and ages

  2025-11-24

  articleOpen access

  Polygenic score (PGS) predictions of educational achievement are sizeable at the population level. Yet, population-level PGS predictions are environmentally confounded, due to gene-environment correlations, assortative mating, and population stratification. This confounding complicates the interpretation and application of PGS predictions of educational achievement. Here, we charted the variability of PGS predictions in N=8,115 dizygotic twins from UK, US, Swedish, and German samples aged 7 to 19 years. Population-level PGS predictions of educational achievement ranged from beta =.16 to beta =.37 across ages and countries. Discerning within- and between-family level estimates, we found that 10% to 65% of the population-level PGS predictions were due to environmental confounding, of which 29% to 100% were accounted for by family socioeconomic status. Variability in within-family and population-level PGS predictions was largely unsystematic across countries’ school systems (multi-tiered vs. comprehensive) and children’s ages. Therefore, interpretations regarding the sources of environmental confounding effects on educational achievement remain, at present, speculative.

  PublisherDOI

• The Interplay of Genes and Environment Across Multiple Studies (IGEMS) Consortium After Fifteen Years

  Twin Research and Human Genetics · 2025-12-19 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  The Interplay of Genes and Environment across Multiple Studies (IGEMS) is a consortium of 21 twin studies from 5 countries (Australia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and United States) established to explore the nature of gene-environment interplay in cognitive, physical, and emotional health across the adult lifespan. The combined data from over 145,000 participants (aged 18 to 108 years at intake) has supported multiple research projects over the three phases of development since its inception in 2010. Phases 1 and 2 focused on launching and growing the consortium and supported important developments in data harmonization, analyses of data pooled across multiple studies, incorporation of linkages to national registries and conscription data, and integration of molecular genetic and classical twin designs. IGEMS Phase 3 focuses on developing appropriate infrastructure to maximize utilization of this large twin consortium for aging research.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Genetic and environmental contributions to the associations between midlife personality and late‐life metabolic health

  Obesity · 2025-05-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Objective Personality traits such as conscientiousness and emotional stability are consistently linked with better metabolic health, but there is limited evidence on the etiology of these associations and their robustness across the life‐span. Methods Therefore, we estimated phenotypic, genetic, and unique environmental associations of traits indexed by the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire in early‐to‐middle adulthood (mean age = 38.3 years) with BMI, waist circumference, high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol, C‐reactive protein, triglycerides, and glycated hemoglobin in older adulthood (mean age = 70.4 years) using the Minnesota Twin Registry sample ( n = 950). Results Traits that indexed emotional instability in midlife, such as alienation and stress reactivity, were significant predictors of several metabolic outcomes late in life (bivariate | r | ≤ 0.22), whereas negative associations with traits related to conscientiousness (e.g., control, constraint, achievement) tended to be more modest. For most traits that were phenotypically associated, we observed significant genetic correlations. Additionally, alienation and stress reactivity had weak‐to‐moderate unique environmental correlations with BMI, waist circumference, and C‐reactive protein ( r e = 0.10–0.29). Conclusions These results are consistent with an etiology of declining metabolic health into old age involving the propensity toward negative affective experiences decades prior, further validating the health relevance of individual differences in personality.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Leisure activity engagement and depressive symptoms: meta-analysis of 11 studies of middle-aged and older twins aged 32-99

  The Journals of Gerontology Series A · 2025-01-01

  articleSenior author

  BACKGROUND: Leisure activity is associated with a wide range of physical and mental health outcomes. Nonetheless, the causal basis for these associations is uncertain and we do not fully understand why some individuals are active while others are sedentary. METHODS: We investigated genetic and environmental contributions to individual differences in frequencies of social, physical, and intellectual leisure activities and their relationship to depressive symptoms, using data from the Interplay of Genes and Environment across Multiple Studies consortium. The sample consisted of 31 596 like-sex twins (44.1% monozygotic, 31.4% women, age range 32-99 years) representing 11 studies from Sweden, Denmark, United States, and Australia. RESULTS: Results indicated moderate contributions of genetic factors to social (a2 = 0.26, 95% CI = 0.16; 0.35), physical (a2 = 0.39, CI = 0.28; 0.51), and intellectual (a2 = 0.47, CI = 0.33; 0.61) activities. The contribution of shared environmental factors (c2) was trivial, ranging from -0.03 to 0.02, while estimates of nonshared environmental factors (e2) were consistently substantial, ranging from 0.52 to 0.68. There was no evidence that estimates varied by age and limited evidence that they varied by sex and country. Co-twin control analyses revealed a significant negative within-pair association of depressive symptoms with each activity domain. CONCLUSIONS: Although genetic factors contribute importantly to mid-to-late-life activity levels, associations of leisure activity levels with depressive symptoms remained significant when controlling for (unmeasured) genetic and shared environmental confounding. These findings are consistent with, albeit not proof of, a causal effect of leisure activities on depressive symptoms.

  PublisherDOI

• A genetic common factor underlying self-reported math ability and highest math class taken

  Molecular Psychiatry · 2025-09-20

  articleOpen access

  While genetic influences on general intelligence have been well documented, less is known about the genetics underlying narrower abilities ("group factors"). By applying structural equation modeling to results from several genome-wide association studies (GWAS), most critically of self-reported math ability (N = 564 698) and highest math class taken (N = 430 445), we identified 53 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with a latent trait, orthogonal by design with general intelligence, approximating the group factor of quantitative ability. The genes near these SNPs implicated the biological process of neuron projection development, and the genome-wide pattern of gene-set enrichment affirmed the involvement of brain development and synaptic function. We calculated a number of genetic correlations with this quantitative factor, finding negative associations with both internalizing and externalizing disorders and positive associations with STEM occupations such as computer programming. These results provide further evidence for genetic influences on traits other than general factors in human behavioral variation, point to the mechanisms mediating these genetic influences on quantitative ability and interests, and affirm the relationships of the latter traits with a number of real-world outcomes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Reply to Ko, Null within-twin estimates on education and dementia: cautions for within-family contrasts

  European Journal of Epidemiology · 2025-12-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01AG006886

  NIH · $1.5M · 1996

• Adolescent drinking and midlife outcomes: A prospective cotwin control study

  NIH · $4.8M · 2021–2026

• The Effects of Cannabis Legalization and Persistent Use: A Longitudinal Study of Two Twin Cohorts

  NIH · $9.9M · 2017–2029

• NIH Grant R01MH066140

  NIH · $5.8M · 2015

• NIH Grant R01AA011886

  NIH · $3.4M · 2010

Frequent coauthors

• William G. Iacono

  Twin Cities Orthopedics

  550 shared

• Kaare Christensen

  University of Southern Denmark

  302 shared

• Jaakko Kaprio

  Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland

  230 shared

• Robert F. Krueger

  University of Minnesota

  124 shared

• Nicholas G. Martin

  101 shared

• Nancy L. Pedersen

  Karolinska Institutet

  101 shared

• Brian M. Hicks

  Michigan Medicine

  98 shared

• Wendy Johnson

  University of Edinburgh

  94 shared

Labs

• Minnesota Center for Twin and Family ResearchPI

  Research on the genetic and environmental influences on human behavior and mental health.

Education

• Ph.D., Psychology

  University of Minnesota

  1981

• BA, Psychology

  University of California Berkeley

  1975

Awards & honors

• Scholar of the College, College of Liberal Arts, University…
• Regents' Professor, University of Minnesota (2007 - present)
• Dobzhansky Award for Lifetime Contributions to Behavioral Ge…
• Shields Award for Lifetime Contributions to Twin Research (2…