Genetic and neurobiological basis of dog behaviour.

Supervisor: Bruno Stefanon (UniUD)

At present, there is an increased concern for the well-being of domesticated animals and an increased interest for human-companion animal bonds. This interest has been lead to an increase of studies and to the development of methods to measure physiological parameters that may help to explain the genetic and neurobiology interaction of behavioural response in farm and companion animals. 
In this project we will focus on the dog, which has been receiving a growing attention in the context of animal welfare and behavioural studies. A number of factors as size, sex and housing, are known to influence behavioural responses and to cause pronounced individual variation of physiological and ethological parameters. 
The aim of the study is to investigate the interaction of genetic background and neurobiological mechanisms that are at the basis of dog behaviour. In particular, the research will study the behavioural phenotypes of dogs of different breeds and their association with biological marker of neuroendocrine adaptation and plasticity. Salivary cortisol is one of the biomarkers, considered as a gold standard, that will be investigated. Cortisol is a glucocorticoid and is the main end product of the activation of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and is an hormone that could monitor physiological, behavioural and developmental responses. Cortisol concentration can be measured in several matrixes, as blood, urines, integument, milk or saliva but saliva and hair can be collected less invasively than blood or urine and for the former a close parallelism with blood cortisol variation has already been reported. For this project, even hair will be a site of interest both for the evaluation of biomarkers variation and for dog DNA extraction. Analysis of DNA polymorphisms will be interesting to assess potential association between dog genetic and biomarkers variations.
 

Biography and contacts

Alice Colussi was born in 1988 in Italy. In 2011 graduated in Animal Production Science (103/110) and 2014 graduated in Animal Science Master (110/110 cum laude) at Udine University (Italy). In 2014 she started the doctoral course at the PhD school of “Agriculture Science and Biotechnology” at the University of Udine.

colussi.alice.1@spes.uniud.it

[Phone 0432558573]