RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Neuromorphological changes following selection for tameness and aggression in the Russian fox-farm experiment
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.11.21.390229
DO 10.1101/2020.11.21.390229
A1 Erin E. Hecht
A1 Anna Kukekova
A1 David A. Gutman
A1 Greg Acland
A1 Todd M. Preuss
A1 Lyudmila Trut
YR 2020
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/11/22/2020.11.21.390229.abstract
AB The Russian fox-farm experiment is an unusually long-running and well-controlled study designed to replicate wolf-to-dog domestication. As such, it offers an unprecedented window onto the neural mechanisms governing the evolution of behavior. Here we report adaptations to gray matter morphology resulting from selection for tameness vs. aggressive response toward humans. Contrasting with prior work in other domesticated species, tame foxes did not show reduced brain volume. Rather, gray matter volume in both the tame and aggressive strains was increased relative to foxes bred without selection on behavior. Furthermore, tame- and aggressive-enlarged regions overlapped substantially, including portions of motor, somatosensory, and prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, and cerebellum. We also observed differential morphological covariation across distributed gray matter networks. In one prefrontal-hypothalamic network, this covariation differentiated the tame and aggressive foxes together from the conventional strain. These findings indicate that selection for opposite behaviors can influence brain morphology in a similar way.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.