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articles and abstracts on shyness
Ogata N, Hashizume C, Momozawa Y, Masuda K, Kikusui T, Takeuchi Y, Mori Y. Polymorphisms in the canine glutamate transporter-1 gene: identification and variation among five dog breeds.J Vet Med Sci. 2006 Feb;68(2):157-9. 
Erratum in: J Vet Med Sci. 2006 Jul;68(7):2 p following 771.
June 09, 2005
Prairie Vole Shyness Controlled By Microsatellite DNA 
Regulatory regions for vasopression receptor regulation cause changes in the social behavior of male prairie voles.
ATLANTA - Why are some people shy while others are outgoing? A study in the current issue of Science demonstrates for the first time that social behavior may be shaped by differences in the length of seemingly non-functional DNA, sometimes referred to as junk DNA. The finding by researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center of Emory University and the Atlanta-based Center for Behavioral Neuroscience (CBN) has implications for understanding human social behavior and disorders, such as autism.
In the study (Science 308(5728): 1630-4, June 10, 2005), Yerkes and former CBN graduate student Elizabeth A.D. Hammock, PhD, and Yerkes and CBN researcher Larry J. Young, PhD, also of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University's School of Medicine, examined whether the junk DNA, more formally known as microsatellite DNA, associated with the vasopressin receptor gene affects social behavior in male prairie voles, a rodent species. Previous studies, including Dr. Young's gene-manipulation study reported in Nature's June 17, 2004, issue, have shown the vasopressin receptor gene regulates social behaviors in many species.
By Randall Parker at 2005 June 09 09:14 PM
Medical Dispatch: Pet Scans, 5/10/99 (p.46)
To view the full article go to:
http://www.jeromegroopman.com/dg.html
"Acland's and Overall's research has focussed on nervous pointers and shy Siberian huskies; doctors at the University of Pennsylvania are also studying bullterriers, fox terriers, and Ger-man shepherds, all of which exhibit obsessive-compulsive behavior-they may spend hours chasing their tails- and a line of English springer spaniels with poor impulse control: they react aggressively and capriciously to one another and to their handlers. "Breeders don't realize that when they select for refined forms of physical carriage those attributes are linked to behavioral genes," Karen Overall says. For example, the English springers bred for show promenade with their heads far forward, in an almost lunging posture. Several genes are believed to work together to produce such an appearance and gait, and they could include those which, in the species' evolutionary history, are linked to hunting and attacking. Hence the springer spaniels with impulsive aggression. Among many huskies, such side effects of selection seem to have resulted in shyness. "The Siberian husky has a very special social structure," Acland says. "The Jack London myth-that in the Arctic you need a wolf dog, a primitive alpha male-is a lot of garbage. A good sled dog exhibits harmony. You need teamwork. The dog has to be ro-tated from the harness at the front of the sled, or it will become exhausted. There can't be fighting for position among the dogs, but deference." So the painful shyness could be an exaggerated expression of selected deference. Acland has bred a colony of husky crossbreeds in Pennsylvania, descendants of a Siberian husky named Earl. "He was a handsome, lovely dog, donated by a breeder who noticed that he was painfully shy," Acland says. The dog was comfortable with his owner; his extreme bashfulness emerged only when he encountered a stranger. "People like that trait," Acland notes. "It reinforces the feeling, 'This is my dog.' " To study how the genes for shyness were inherited, the researchers mated Earl with a female beagle. The offspring included a female that was then mated with an unrelated male beagle. Among that dog's offspring were two very shy males. "This experiment shows, to a rough approximation, that shyness appears to be transmitted as a dominant trait," Acland says. But he emphasizes that the behavior is complex. There are different degrees of shyness in purebred huskies and in the offspring outbred with beagles, just as there are in people. "It's not binary," Acland says, "but a continuous, quantitative function of several genes." If sled dogs are bred for team-spirit-edness, pointers are bred to have a rigid posture and a tense focus, and the occasional appearance of "nervous" pointers seems to be a result. The pointers that Acland and Overall study are descended from a colony that was maintained at the University of Arkansas, in Fayet-teville, in the early nineteen-seventies. "They were found by Pavlovian psychiatrists looking for natural animal mod-els of neurosis," Karen Overall says. "The doctors hoped they could condi-tion against the avoidance response, but it didn't succeed in these pointers." In a spacious state-of-the-art facility at the University of Pennsylvania, nervous pointers and their unaffected littermates are housed together. The mid-sized, brown-and-white dogs occupy large, comfortable metal-mesh cages, with special vinyl floors so their paws are not trapped or irritated. There are long, broad runs for regular exercise. The cages are cleaned two or three times a day, and a staff of seasoned handlers scrupulously attends to the animals, providing both grooming and affection."
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