SCSB Colloquium with Dr. Erin Hecht: Domestic dogs as a window on nature and nurture in mammalian brain evolution

Researcher Erin Hecht has a new paper in HEB about different breeds of dogs having different brain organization. She is pictured in her office with miniature Australian Shepherds Lefty and Izzy..Jon Chase/Harvard Staff Photographer.

Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2025
Location: 46-3002 (Singleton Auditorium)

Speaker: Erin Hecht, Ph.D.
Affiliation: Assistant Professor, Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University

Host: Dr. Ev Fedorenko

Talk title: Domestic dogs as a window on nature and nurture in mammalian brain evolution
Abstract: Disentangling the relative contributions of heritable and environmental factors has been a central challenge in biology and neuroscience, especially for large-brained, behaviorally complex species. Domestic dogs offer a special window on this question, since distinct lineages have been artificially selected for different, specific skills which have an innate basis but are nonetheless dependent on environmental exposure and training. This talk will cover our lab’s recent brain-behavior findings in dogs. We will discuss neural traits resulting from selection for working skills, the separate and interacting effects of training and selection, neural correlates of trainability, service work, and communication, and a white matter pathway in the canine brain which appears to be analogous to the human arcuate fasciculus. We will also draw some comparisons with our lab’s ape neuroscience research and consider implications for human brain evolution.