Behavioural genetics general overview will give you a general overview about how we can study behavioural changes in different organisms in the perspective of genetics and we will know further details about what behavioural genetics is and how we can study it below.
Table of Contents
What is Behavioural Genetics:
It is a branch in genetics where geneticists try to understand the influence of environment and genetics on different types of behavioural changes that occur in different organisms like in humans and other animals.
Sometimes it becomes very controversial in the theory of behavioral genetics because the study of behavioral genetics and its research shows that the individual IQ and other behaviour like aggressiveness can depend upon the genetics of the individual and those traits are controlled by different genes which are highly influenced by environmental factors.
Sometimes it does not agree with most of the people because it tells us about the dependency of human behaviour and ability on the genetics and different environmental factors, so intelligence of a person depends upon the genetic expression of that particular individual which is against traditional human belief.
Study of behavioral genetics is a quantitative genetics study in which scientists research the influence of the environment and genetics on different animals and humans by controlling both gene expression and environmental conditions in the laboratory, which we will discuss in more detail below.
Behavioural Genetics in Human:
Study in Twins:
In humans it is not possible to control the genetics in the laboratory like other animals but the twins method can be used to study the influence of genetics and environmental conditions on humans.
In human twin formation can occur in two ways, one way is monozygotic twins in which a single zygote gives rise to two newborn while another one is dizygotic twins in which two different zygotes give rise to two different newborn.
So in case of monozygotic twins the genetic information in both the babies are similar because they formed from a single fertilized egg but in case of dizygotic twins the genetic information is half similar because they formed from two different fertilized eggs and we can study in both cases for behavioural genetics.
If we assume that human behaviour is influenced by environmental conditions then, the two dizygotic twins must have similar behaviour because they grow in the same environment in the same timeline so they may be dissimilar in genetic level but they are in the same environmental conditions.
On the other hand, if we assume that human behaviour is influenced by genetics then, the monozygotic twins must show similarities in their behaviour because they have the same genetic information due to their origin from a single fertilized egg.
Study in Case of Adoption:
In this case scientists research on the behaviour of those children who are adopted and grow to their non biological parents far away from their biological parents.
Research shows that if a newborn body is adopted by non-biological parents and if they grow up far apart from their schizophrenic biological parents then the chance of having schizophrenia in the child is 10% as compared to if the child is raised by the biological schizophrenic patients.
Behavioural Genetics in Animals:
When we allow animals to mate for several generations we find that large similarities among the siblings also occurs when we rear a large number of inbred strains in the same laboratory conditions then we can observe the behaviour of those animals.
Another research where we perform breeding for low and high extreme traits for several generations and we can study the influence of genetics on their behaviour and how it is influenced by genetic factors.
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