Mouse Study Discovers DNA That Controls <some mouse> Behavior

[DreamGypsy]

The actual title of the New York Times Science article Mouse Study Discovers DNA That Controls Behavior was clearly chosen as a 'grabber'. The reported findings do not claim to have found in mice the common genes that control animal behavior nor even the parts of the mouse genome that control mouse behavior. However, the discovery is still very interesting and does probe the "question of how genes control complicated behavior in animals and humans". And the research approach taken pretty interesting...

A long term study of the construction of burrows by deer mice has the beginnings of an answer. Hailed as innovative and exciting by other scientists, the report, in the current issue of Nature, identifies four regions of DNA that play a major role in telling a mouse how long a burrow to dig and whether to add an escape tunnel.

<snip>

While other genes have been found in various species from worms to voles that govern various kinds of behavior, like mating and aggression, Dr. Hoekstra and her colleagues took on an unusually complicated behavior with an approach that involved nearly a decade of work on ecology and evolutionary biology as well as genetics. The result, said Cori Bargmann, who studies the genetics of behavior in roundworms at Rockefeller University, is “really exciting.” She added that “it was done with great intelligence. The genetics are beautiful.”

<snip>

Dr. Hoekstra treated tunnel length and architecture as a physical, measurable trait, much like tail length or weight, by filling burrows with foam that would produce a mold easily measured and catalogued – behavior made solid.

<snip>

Then the scientists matched variations in tunnel architecture to variations in DNA. What they found were three areas of DNA that contributed to determining tunnel length, and one area affecting whether or not the crossbred mice dug an escape tunnel. That was a separate behavior inherited on its own, so that the mice could produce tunnels of any length, with or without escape tunnels.

All complicated behaviors are affected by many things, Dr. Hoekstra said, so these regions of DNA do not determine tunnel architecture and length by themselves. But tunnel length is about 30 percent inherited, she said, and the three locations account for about half of that variation. The rest is determined by many tiny genetic effects. As for the one location that affected whether or not mice dug an escape tunnel, if a short-burrow mouse had the long-burrow DNA region, it was 40 percent more likely to dig a complete escape tunnel.

Here's the link to the summary in Nature including some diagrams and a video.


Pretty cool!

[mike_c]

1. bear in mind that ALL behavior is ultimately under genetic control...

...via nervous system development. The computing platform that matches incoming stimuli to appropriate output effectors-- the basis for all animal behaviors no matter how plastic or how innate-- develops under strict genetic control. Epigenetics plays an important role too, of course, but all indications are that central nervous system development cannot be too loosey goosey before impacting normal behavior later.