A left-lateralized white matter tract associated with communication in domestic dogs.

Abstract

The ability to communicate with conspecifics is an adaptive behavior important for survival and reproduction, particularly in lineages that evolved enlarged brains and complex social behavior. In humans, language is supported by a robust, left-lateralized white matter fiber tract called the arcuate fasciculus, which links Broca's and Wernicke's areas, the core neocortical language regions located in the frontal and temporal lobes, respectively¹. This tract is also present in chimpanzees, less substantial than in humans and either weakly leftwardly-asymmetric or not asymmetric². Other mammalian lineages have evolved large brains, complex behavior and social communication in parallel with primates, notably including carnivores. In dogs (Canis familiaris), domestication has almost certainly involved additional selective pressures and environmental factors that have shaped the evolution and development of neural circuits for communication. We report that the dog brain possesses a large, left-lateralized white matter tract that links cortical centers for productive and receptive communication, and that this tract is positively associated with individual variation in receptive vocabulary size.