Jan. 14, 2014 — A unique study of the white-throated sparrow has identified a biological pathway connecting variation in the birds' aggression and parenting behaviors in the wild to variation in their genome.
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) is publishing the results of the experiments, conducted by the lab of neuroscientist Donna Maney in Emory's Department of Psychology.
The research, which comprised behavioral observations of the study subjects in the field and laboratory analyses of their gene expression in the brain, showed that variation in the expression of the estrogen receptor alpha (ER-alpha) gene strongly predicts the birds' behavior.
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