The coexistence of cats, dogs and humans for thousands of years has led to a major change in the brains, genes and hormones of these three types, so that the cat genes related to memory and fear have become somewhat equivalent to those that qualify humans for social interaction.
The French magazine L'OBS said in an article by Jean-Paul Fritz, that dog love may be in human genes, based on a serious study from Uppsala University in Sweden that says that after testing dog love in identical twins.
Dogs - ten thousand years
The study indicated that ten, spanning thousands of years, brought about changes in the shape of wolves that became dogs and their brains, which decreased their weight by 30 to 34%, because, being domesticated, they no longer need all the basic brain skills in their wildlife.
Archaic scientist Morgan Olivier and her team of Evolution, Genomics and Adaptation from the French National Research Center and the University of Rennes 1 (l'université de Rennes-1) are doing massive work to discover how domestication got into the genes of dogs.
This scientist says they are tracking the domestication genes that changed in dogs since they began participating in the lives of hunters and gatherers in the Middle Stone Age.
"We have identified areas in the dog's genome that may be related to this domestication, but we have not yet discovered their functional effects, and this is the subject of our future research," she explains, "hence," it is still difficult to link genetics and behavior. "
Pleasure hormones
However, researchers at Princeton University in the United States have linked canine behavior to Williams syndrome, a genetic human disease characterized by hyperconnection, as the genome modifications causing this disease are partially found in the dog's genetic counterpart to varying degrees, which may explain the temperament Friendly dog.
But domestication is also a complex issue, as a recent study by Morgan Olivier and her team showed that the increased vegetarian nature of the human diet has led to genetic mutations in dogs.
And even observing the amount of human influence in dogs through a CT scan, as confirmed by researchers at Emory University in Atlanta in the United States, where they examined the reactions of dogs when inhaling human scents.
The owner’s scent, even in his absence, activates the area of the brain associated with the reward, as a stronger positive response than that seen with other familiar canine scents.
A study by Azabu University in Japan showed that the hypothalamus gland in the dog secretes when its owner the hormone oxytocin in large quantities, which is not done in wolves, knowing that this hormone is known to the general public as a pleasure hormone.
Cat .. that child
The author pointed out that the cat, which is said to be completely independent, is also not without the effect of domestication on its genome, even if its evolution is less exciting due to the delay of domestication by humans.
By comparing the DNA of domestic cats to their wild counterparts, a team from McDonnell Genome Institute at Washington University in the United States showed that changes in behavior had implications for the cats' genetic areas of memory, fear and reward seeking.
Thus, a domesticated cat is less afraid of unfamiliar people and environments and is only interested in searching for the food offered to him.
The writer pointed out that these cat genes are somewhat similar to those that prepare the human for social interaction, so that, according to experiments conducted by Oregon State University in the United States, the cat appeared to behave like a child when placed in an environment unfamiliar to him.
In a room devoid of familiar features, for example, the cats showed natural signs of insecurity, but as soon as their owners returned, they returned to relaxation and often began to explore, as 66% did so, while 34% of them continued to exhibit "insecurity" behavior. These proportions are exactly the same as those for babies when placed in the same spot.
The writer said that no matter how old cats are, they "speak as if they were young," and the familiar sounds that make us actually resemble the way cats talk to their mother.