Animal Behavior or Human Behavior?
I'm sure everyone has seen the dog who chronically chases its tail. Or how about the anxious person who is always biting their nails. How about the mean cocker spaniel who runs up to you and then bites you when you try to pet it. And what about that extremely sad, angry individual who sometimes appears suicidal. Current research suggests that there are parallels between animal behavior and human behavior when it comes to psychological disorders.
Dr. Nicholas Dodman, an animal behaviorist at Tufts School of Veterinary Medicine, has been anxiously exploring the genetic components of many psychiatric problems in dogs and trying to relate the findings to humans.
Dr. Dodman's first experiment is to look at the genetic differences between Dobermans who constantly suck the hair on their stomach and Dobermans who do not exhibit this behavior. He then plans to compare the genetic differences between bull terriers who consistently chase their tail and bull terriers who have never displayed this behavior. Dr. Dodman is confident that he will be able to locate the genes that are responsible for these psychiatric behaviors.
Some human psychologists are optimistic about Dr. Dodman's research. They claim locating the genetic markers for these disorders in dogs can be directly related over to humans. For example, tail chasing in dogs may be similar to obsessive compulsive disorders in humans. Aggression in dogs may also be related to self-aggression in humans, which may lead to suicide attempts.
Having worked with dogs who display behavior disorders, I am confident that Dr. Dodman's research will unravel many mysteries. I believe many of the quirky behaviors that dogs exhibit are related to psychological disorders in humans. Being able to identify the genetic markers of these disorders should be able to facilitate treatment in both animal and human alike.
Posted by Kathryn DeLisle (5).
posted by PWH @ 7:02 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
This topic is really interesting. I'd like to see what Dr. Dodman finds and how psychologists use this research.
This is a really interesting concept. I'm not sure I would correlate tail chasing with OCD, but maybe it is true that with more information about genetic markers, we might be able to gain insight on disorders in human behavior. I am concerned that if genetic markers are located, that an attempt might be made to "breed" these behaviors out, which is a little scary. The results of the research would be really interesting to hear though, good job!
amolina (4)
This is really interesting. I wonder if there are any other behaviors that occur in animals that also occur in humans. I wonder how this will affect psychology in the future.
Posted by Hollis Martin
The title of the article really caught my attention. I feel this is a very interesting topic. I really liked your introduction paragraph where you tie in all the different behaviors. I would really like to see how this research turns out. Hopefully we will get some insightful information on this topic. The post is very well written!
Posted by:
Kirubakaran Sivagurunathan.
I found this blog to very interesting as well. Due to the way that the introduction was set up, I was immediately drawn to read the rest of the blog. It would be fascinating to discover that the results to these experiments could provide us with better knowledge about psychological disorders that usually occur to humans. I'm also interesting in finding out what you observed when you worked with dogs that displayed behavior disorders. Maybe you could add a few examples to your blog post?
Posted by Luzviminda Maurillo
It is very interesting topic, biology is always involved in our live, so does behavior. I am sure Dr. Dodman will find something that can proof the relationship between animals and human.
Posted by Xuni (5)
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