@LabHecht

Erin Hecht, PI of the Evolutionary Neuroscience Lab & Director of the Canine Brains Project. Dept of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University. (she/her)

 Cambridge, MA
hechtlab.org
Joined November 2018
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  • Followers1.5K
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Human-directed aggression in dogs is a serious problem, both for humans and for dogs. It deserves serious research. We need real data. Not the perpetuation of assumptions and stereotypes.
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So why is the media reporting that pit bulls are especially likely to become aggressive if they experience trauma? One possibility: hallucinations from LLMs that generate initial drafts of the news articles. AI reflects the biases of our culture as a whole.
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We never even mentioned pit bulls in the text of our paper... because their response to early life stress wasn't significantly different from the average of all other breeds.
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And the impact of early life stress on fear in pit bulls isn't particularly large either.
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As you can see here, pits who experience early life stress actually have a pretty *small* bump in aggression compared to other breeds.
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Some media are reporting that our recent study (nature.com/articles/s41598-0…) shows that pit bulls are especially likely to become aggressive if they are exposed to early life stress. Simply not true.
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However, just because a dog has a certain background, or comes from a certain breed, doesn't mean they are destined to behave a certain way. Many factors go making each dog who they are, and breed and life history are just two pieces of the puzzle.
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Why is this important? If we can identify the genes and pathways underlying this risk and resilience, we might be able to develop targeted interventions. We are already analyzing the dogs' DNA samples and MRI scans!
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The impact of early life stress is not evenly distributed across breeds. Some breeds are especially sensitive. Others appear to be protected. This suggests the existence of **heritable factors for risk and resilience.**
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We also found something NEW.
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Traumatic experiences during the first 6 months of life were the most impactful. This is known as a sensitive period in development. Other mammals have them too, including humans.
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Unsurprisingly, early life trauma increases the risk for both fear and aggression.
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Lead author Dr. Julia Espinosa collected data from almost 4,500 dogs (!!). Guardians provided information about their dogs' histories and current behavior. We are incredibly grateful for their time and contributions. They helped us uncover some important new information...
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If you have a rescue dog, you might have the sense that stressful experiences can impact dogs' behavior later in life. Well, we just did the largest study ever on this topic. Open access! nature.com/articles/s41598-0…
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Replying to @CordeauMelina @LabHecht @Sophie_A_Barton @HarvardHEB @Harvard
📄 Published in Imaging Neuroscience @ImagingNeurosci 🙏 Huge thanks to @LabHecht and @Sophie_A_Barton 📍@HarvardHEB @Harvard
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Hey @colossal. Wanna scan your dire wolves' brains? My lab at Harvard University does non-invasive MRI scans in dogs, foxes, and more!
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Using non-invasive MRI, we found a pathway in dog brains that predicts receptive vocabulary size. It’s left-lateralized & connects regions that produce and perceive vocal communication. A convergently evolved arcuate fasciculis? Read at @CurrentBiology: sciencedirect.com/science/ar…
The image shows a white matter path in the dog brain connecting vocal premotor region XC to temporal auditory regions rESG and pESG. A bar graph shows that the tract is significantly larger in the left hemisphere. Scatterplots show that the tract predicts the receptive vocabulary size of individual dogs.

ALT The image shows a white matter path in the dog brain connecting vocal premotor region XC to temporal auditory regions rESG and pESG. A bar graph shows that the tract is significantly larger in the left hemisphere. Scatterplots show that the tract predicts the receptive vocabulary size of individual dogs.

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I emailed Dr. Trut as a no-name grad student asking if I could do MRI research with her foxes. She didn’t write me off & 15 years later I have a lab at Harvard continuing to study the amazing animals she helped create. She made an impact in science & my life. Thank you, Dr. Trut.
Scientific American
@sciam24 Oct 2024
Lyudmila Trut devoted her life to studying the process of domestication by selectively breeding friendly foxes trib.al/RracGzx

The Daring Russian Geneticist Whose Experiments on Silver Foxes Explained Domestication Has Died

Lyudmila Trut devoted her life to studying the process of domestication by selectively breeding friendly foxes

scientificamerican.com
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📢 PhD position in human, ape, or dog cognition @JohnsHopkins - please RT! We study how animals think, & what makes the human mind unique Deadline: Dec 1 Learn more here: social-cognitive-origins.com And here: social-cognitive-origins.com… And in QT'd thread
Christopher Krupenye@ChrisKrupenye12 Sep 2021
🚨 PhD position(s) in human, nohuman primate, and dog cognition! I am thrilled to be recruiting one or more PhD students to join the new Comparative Social Cognition research group, launching next summer at @JohnsHopkins @JHUArtsSciences. 1/
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Come see @Sophie_A_Barton’s talk if you’re at #sfn2024! Nature and nurture in the brain organization of domestic dogs!
Sophie A. Barton@Sophie_A_Barton6 Oct 2024
I’m giving a nano talk at #sfn2024 #SfN24 tomorrow! It’s at 1 pm in room N227 if anyone wants to come learn about working dogs and their brains
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