Abstract
Despite their genetic similarity to humans, our understanding of the role of genes on cognitive traits in chimpanzees remains virtually unexplored. Here, we examined the relationship between genetic variation in the arginine vasopressin V1a receptor gene (AVPR1A) and social cognition in chimpanzees. Studies have shown that chimpanzees are polymorphic for a deletion in a sequence in the 5′ flanking region of the AVPR1A, DupB, which contains the variable RS3 repetitive element, which has been associated with variation in social behavior in humans. Results revealed that performance on the social cognition task was significantly heritable. Furthermore, males with one DupB+ allele performed significantly better and were more responsive to socio-communicative cues than males homozygous for the DupB- deletion. Performance on a non-social cognition task was not associated with the AVPR1A genotype. The collective findings show that AVPR1A polymorphisms are associated with individual differences in performance on a receptive joint attention task in chimpanzees.
Highlights
Despite their genetic similarity to humans, our understanding of the role of genes on cognitive traits in chimpanzees remains virtually unexplored
After controlling for genetic relatedness, receptive joint attention (RJA) performance was linked to variation in the arginine vasopressin V1a receptor (AVPR1A) gene and this was the case for male but not female chimpanzees
Our analysis suggests that variation in AVPR1A RS3 explains approximately 5% of the variance in RJA performance, which is a fairly robust effect size for a single gene’s impact on behavior
Summary
Despite their genetic similarity to humans, our understanding of the role of genes on cognitive traits in chimpanzees remains virtually unexplored. Responding to gaze and manual pointing cues seem to be a shared trait among primates and may have a strong evolutionary foundation In studies of both human and nonhuman primates, there are considerable individual differences in receptive joint attention (RJA) performance; the potential biological factors that underlie this variation are poorly understood[10,21]. Though some studies in apes suggest that different rearing experiences can influence performance on RJA tasks[19,20], the potential role that genetic factors might play remains largely unknown and unexplored. Despite the long standing evidence of genetic similarities between humans and chimpanzees, there are very few studies that have examined the role of genes on social behavior and cognition in apes[24,25]. We hypothesized that if individual differences in RJA performance have a potential genetic basis, significant heritability in performance would be found within the chimpanzee sample
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