Domestication of the dog from the wolf was promoted by enhanced excitatory synaptic plasticity: a hypothesis
Open accessAbstract
Dogs shared a much closer relationship with humans than any other domesticated animals, probably due to their unique social cognitive capabilities, which were hypothesized to be a by-product of selection for tameness toward humans. Here, we demonstrate that genes involved in glutamate metabolism, which account partially for fear response, indeed show the greatest population differentiation by whole-genome comparison of dogs and wolves. However, the changing direction of their expression supports a role in increasing excitatory synaptic plasticity in dogs rather than reducing fear response. Because synaptic plasticity are widely believed to be cellular correlates of learning and memory, this change may alter the learning and memory abilities of ancient scavenging wolves, weaken the fear reaction toward humans, and prompt the initial interspecific contact.
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Genes involved in glutamate metabolism show the greatest population differentiation by whole-genome comparison of dogs and wolves.
“Previous work by Li et al. [102] already pointed out that genes involved in glutamate metabolism show the greatest population differentiation by whole-genome comparison of dogs and wolves.”
From Self-domestication in Homo sapiens: Insights from comparative genomics (2017) · cites this paper as [102]
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Li, Y., Wang, G.-D., Wang, M.-S., Irwin, D. M., Wu, D.-D., & Zhang, Y.-P.
- Affiliations
- Kunming Institute of Zoology (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Wu, Dong-Dong
- Zhang, Ya-Ping
- Venue
- Genome Biology and Evolution
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2014-11
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 3115-3121
- ISSN
- 1759-6653 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4255776
- OpenAlex
- W2167156773
- Cited by
- 38
- References
- 41
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 2
- FWCI
- 1.97
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- Genome Biology and Evolution (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (31321002, 91231108, 31123005)
- National Key Research and Development Program of China (31123005, 2013CB835200)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Human-Animal Interaction Studies
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic and phenotypic traits in livestock
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic diversity and population structure
- Keywords
- dog domestication, wolf, glutamate metabolism, fear response, gene expression, genetic differentiation, social cognition, tameness, learning and memory
- MeSH terms
- GluK3 Kainate Receptor, Animals, Animals, Domestic, Dogs, Neuronal Plasticity, Selection, Genetic, Genome, Kainic Acid Receptors, Evolution, Molecular, Wolves, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide
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