Final Report Summary - DOGPSYCH (Canine models of human psychiatric disease: identifying novel anxiety genes with the help of man's best friend)
This DOGPSYCH project aimed to develop approaches to measure the variation in canine behavior to uncover novel anxiety loci with relevance to human medicine. We established relevant methodologies to reach large numbers of dogs across breeds for compulsion, fear and noise phobia. We analyzed the behavioral profiles, environmental correlates and eventually the genomes of the extreme ends of the traits of the several hundreds of dogs. We identified environmental factors such as the quality of the maternal care, socialization and exercise, that affect the development of canine anxiety. Genetic analyses revealed novel loci for fear and noise phobia. We conclude that canine anxiety resembles human anxiety in many ways, and genetic factors can be identified when well phenotypes and large enough study cohorts are established. The new genetic loci revealed in this study may harbor genes also for human anxiety or hint for the affected pathways. Our future goal is to further expand the study size for efficient replication and identification of more anxiety loci.