Rockefeller University scientists have identified four specific mouse genes that appear to play key roles in female mouse behavior. “We have linked four genes known to be involved in social interaction into one model to explain the behavior known as social recognition,” says Elena Choleris. “Social recognition is a crucial behavior in animals including humans that live in groups, because in order to know who your friends, bosses and enemies are, you need to not only recognize individuals but remember who they are.” Female mice do this by their sense of smell. In this experiment, knockout female mice were produced lacking the genes to produce three proteins called oxytocin, estrogen receptor alpha and estrogen receptor beta – all required to allow nerves in the nose to bind with and “smell” a sex hormone called estradiol. These knockout female mice never came to recognize new female mice to whom they were introduced as ones they had seen before. No matter how many times the new mice were placed in the cage, the knockout females sniffed them all over again as though they were strangers. The research is reviewed in the latest issue of PNAS and will be posted online soon, here.

Thus research is showing that mouse behavior is influenced by genes – but what about humans? This is an explosive, controversial topic. For example, in the early 1990s the National Institutes of Health tried to start a major research project called the Violence Initiative which was intended to explore the genetic basis for violence in various groups of people. This project was quickly killed in a furor of protest as being racist. Today it’s politically correct to assume violence like the Columbine shootings was caused by Klebold and Harris absorbing too much violent video games, movies and music. With the completion of the Human Genome Map, looking once more for genetic as well of environmental causes for human behaviors such as violence is probably inevitable – and certainly a source of future conflict between science and society.