Erin Hecht, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Human Evolutionary Biology
Harvard University

Brain-behavior evolution in domesticated canids

How do animals evolve new behavioral adaptations? Domestication offers a unique window into this question because it can involve strong selection pressure on a focused set of behaviors. In one set of studies, we are comparing brains of foxes from the Russian farm-fox project, a long-running experimental evolution program involving artificial selection on social approach/avoidance behavior toward humans. Neuroimaging analyses have revealed changes to prefrontal-limbic networks – surprisingly, sometimes in the same direction for tame and aggressive foxes. Meanwhile, in domestic dogs, we have identified significant differences in regionally covarying gray matter morphology networks across breeds. These networks appear to map onto breed-specialized skills such as hunting, herding, and guarding, suggesting that selective breeding by humans has had a significant effect on dog brain anatomy. Furthermore, brain phenotypes can also be linked to breed-average variation in behavioral flexibility and emotional reactivity in a pattern that suggests within-species effects of neurodevelopmental scaling patterns. Together, these findings are relevant for understanding general mechanisms of brain-behavior evolution across animal species, including our own.

Faculty Host: Chris Krupenye