Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T13:05:09.608Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Biologically constrained behavioral genetics research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2016

Elizabeth A. D. Hammock
Elizabeth A. D. Hammock*
Affiliation:
Department of Pediatrics, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, 1115 Light Hall, Nashville, TN 37232. [email protected]
Get access

Extract

From a biologist's perspective, social behavior includes any behavior that involves at least two actors. By this definition, social behavior can include aggregation in slime molds, the colony structure of the eusocial insects, or the coordinated efforts of humans across vast distances to successfully land on the moon. The diversity of this range of behavior shares one driving force: natural selection. While natural selection acts at the level of phenotype (e.g., morphology, metabolism, behavior) the ultimate unit of natural selection is the gene contained in DNA-the object of inheritance. The relationship between DNA and social behavior is uncovered in the field of sociogenomics, defined as the mechanistic study of genes, gene products, and gene × gene interaction networks supporting emergent social behaviors.

Type
NSF Workshop Report
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , Fall 2011 , pp. 93 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Robinson, G. E., Grozinger, C. M., and Whitfield, C. W., “Sociogenomics: Social life in molecular terms,” Nature Reviews Genetics 2005, 6(4): 257–270.Google Scholar
2. Robinson, G. E., “Development. Sociogenomics takes flight,” Science 2002, 297(5579): 204–205.Google Scholar
3. Robinson, G. E., “Integrative animal behaviour and sociogenomics,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 1999, 14(5): 202–205.Google Scholar
4. Clarke, J. et al., “Continuous base identification for single-molecule nanopore DNA sequencing,” Nature Nanotechnology 2009, 4(4): 265–270.Google Scholar
5. Teague, B. et al., “High-resolution human genome structure by single-molecule analysis,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2010, 107(24): 10848–10853.Google Scholar
6. Manolio, T. A. et al., “Finding the missing heritability of complex diseases,” Nature 2009, 461(7265): 747–753.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7. Wang, K. et al., “Common genetic variants on 5p14.1 associate with autism spectrum disorders,” Nature 2009, 459(7246): 528–533.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8. Campbell, D. B. et al., “A genetic variant that disrupts MET transcription is associated with autism,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2006, 103(45): 16834–16839.Google Scholar
9. Walsh, T. et al., “Rare structural variants disrupt multiple genes in neurodevelopmental pathways in schizophrenia,” Science 2008, 320(5875): 539–543.Google Scholar
10. Stefansson, H. et al., “Large recurrent microdeletions associated with schizophrenia,” Nature 2008, 455(7210): 232–236.Google Scholar
11. Glessner, J. T. et al., “Autism genome-wide copy number variation reveals ubiquitin and neuronal genes,” Nature 2009, 459(7246): 569–573.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12. Bucan, M. et al., “Genome-wide analyses of exonic copy number variants in a family-based study point to novel autism susceptibility genes,” PLoS Genetics 2009, 5(6): e1000536.Google Scholar
13. de Bono, M. et al., “Social feeding in Caenorhabditis elegans is induced by neurons that detect aversive stimuli,” Nature 2002, 419(6910): 899–903.Google Scholar
14. de Bono, M. and Bargmann, C. I., “Natural variation in a neuropeptide Y receptor homolog modifies social behavior and food response in C. elegans,” Cell, 1998, 94(5): 679–689.Google Scholar
15. Hammock, E. A. and Young, L. J., “Microsatellite instability generates diversity in brain and sociobehavioral traits,” Science 2005, 308(5728): 1630–1634.Google Scholar
16. Stranger, B. E. et al., “Relative impact of nucleotide and copy number variation on gene expression phenotypes,” Science, 2007, 315(5813): 848–853.Google Scholar
17. Orozco, L. D. et al., “Copy number variation influences gene expression and metabolic traits in mice,” Human Molecular Genetics 2009, 18(21): 4118–4129.Google Scholar
18. Guryev, V. et al., “Distribution and functional impact of DNA copy number variation in the rat,” Nature Genetics 2008, 40(5): 538–545.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
19. BrainSpan: Atlas of the Developing Human Brain [Internet]. Funded by ARRA Awards 1RC2MH089921-01, 1RC2MH090047-01, and 1RC2MH089929-01. © 2011, http://developinghumanbrain.org.Google Scholar
20. Kang, H. J. et al., “Spatio-temporal transcriptome of the human brain,” Nature 2011, 478(7370): 483–489.Google Scholar
21. Johnson, M. B. et al., “Functional and evolutionary insights into human brain development through global transcriptome analysis,” Neuron 2009, 62(4): 494–509.CrossRefGoogle Scholar