There have been several interesting reports of ‘behavioral hot spots' or regions of the genome that are often associated with behavior (Flint 2003). Other recent work on the structure of the mouse genome shows that there are regions of the genome which appear to have undergone selection in the tortuous history toward laboratory domestication of mice, first as pets and then as research subjects (Yang et al. 2007). These findings suggest that there may be a limited number of genetically variable pathways which underlie the bulk of observed neurophenotypic variation in the common mouse population. By intersecting results of genetic correlation and positional candidacy, we may identify those pathways which are repeatedly associated with neurobehavioral trait variation, and thus perhaps the pathways that underwent selection in the generation of common laboratory strains.
