#2195 - Andrew Huberman

**Andrew Huberman** (0:03)
The Joe Rogan Experience. Trained by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. All right, we're good.

**Joe Rogan** (0:13)
Mr. Huberman, how are you, sir? Good to see you.

**Andrew Huberman** (0:15)
Good to see you.

**Joe Rogan** (0:16)
So what were you just saying about dog breeds that, like we were talking about, Carl, like the little bulldog breeds have more mastiff than wolf?

**Andrew Huberman** (0:24)
Yeah, so-

**Joe Rogan** (0:25)
So mastiff is a different thing?

**Andrew Huberman** (0:26)
Well, so-

**Joe Rogan** (0:27)
Don't they all come from wolves?

**Andrew Huberman** (0:29)
Yeah, they all originate from wolves, but then dog selection has been twofold, mainly for phenotype, like morphology, the shape, we call it, and then temperament, right? So there's this chart, it might be a little hard to find online, about the dosing of wolf versus mastiff genetics, essentially. And there's a bunch of other things woven into dog genetics. First of all, cool point, dogs are among, I don't know if they are the most, maybe whales are the most, but they are among the greatest variation in body size within a given species. You think of chihuahua and great guinea, and it looks like it's dosing of the genes controlling IGF-1, which makes sense, growth hormone, but kind of wild, right? Like we got some big humans and some smaller humans, but not like dogs.

**Joe Rogan** (1:17)
Chihuahuas, and then what are those enormous shepherd dogs? Those, what are those ones, those insane dogs they use to fight off wolves? What the fuck are those things called? Those gigantic hairy things? You know what I'm talking about? We've talked about them before. They're terrifying looking dogs.

**Andrew Huberman** (1:36)
Yeah, I mean, just the, what's it called? Oh my goodness.

**Joe Rogan** (1:39)
Oh yeah, those things. What the fuck is that thing? What is that called again?
But we've seen it before. Doesn't it say the name of the dog? Well, find the name of those dogs, because there's, Brian Cowan knows all this shit.

**Andrew Huberman** (2:05)
Right, so I have a colleague at Stanford, Sue McConnell, who- Jozo?

**Joe Rogan** (2:09)
Jozo dogs? No, that's not it. There's a name for them, though. Oh, Tibetan Mastiff.

**Andrew Huberman** (2:16)
Tibetan Mastiff.

**Joe Rogan** (2:17)
Yeah, they're really furry, and they're like 250 pounds. Look at that puppy. That's seven weeks old. That's so crazy.

**Andrew Huberman** (2:26)
I wonder how many they have in the litter.

**Joe Rogan** (2:28)
How could they have very many?

**Andrew Huberman** (2:29)
Yeah, it's gotta be just a few.

**Joe Rogan** (2:31)
Poor, poor mama.

**Andrew Huberman** (2:33)
So, this colleague at Stanford, Sue McConnell, she's won best in show at some of the big events for poolies. She breeds horses and she's into that whole-

**Joe Rogan** (2:42)
What's a poolie?

**Andrew Huberman** (2:43)
The poolies are the ones that look like Rastafarian dogs. You know, their eyes are covered. They're amazing. They're amazing. And she had this chart on her door. I was going to meet with her about something. She handles a lot of undergraduate education at Stanford. And I see this chart and the chart essentially shows the dosing of kind of the original wolf line genes versus more mastiff, heavy genetic background. And there are a lot of breeds on this chart, but it essentially shows up in the following way. The dogs that are more sight and scent, right? And with longer snouts-

**Joe Rogan** (3:16)
Like a shepherd.

**Andrew Huberman** (3:17)
Like a shepherd have more heavy dosing of the wolf genes still in them. Then you get to the shorter snout, kind of snub nose, like the French bulldog, the English bulldog, and some mastiff breeds, pugs, right? And the amount of wolf in them is like nil to none. And then-

**Joe Rogan** (3:34)
But wait a minute, but they all start off as wolves.

**Andrew Huberman** (3:36)
So they have some genes that relate to the wolf origin lineage, right? But over time, they've been bred, for instance, the English bulldog.

**Joe Rogan** (3:44)
But all dogs originally come from wolves.

**Andrew Huberman** (3:47)
Yes, that's my understanding as well.

**Joe Rogan** (3:48)
Even mastiffs.

**Andrew Huberman** (3:48)
That's right. That's my understanding. But then, as they were cross-bred with different dogs, so for instance, the English bulldog, that line came from the crossing of essentially pug, like short snout, but with mastiff, with mastiffs or with dogs with heavy mastiff genetic dosing. Why? Well, the idea was the short snout gives them a good lever for holding on to things, and the mastiff genes lead to, and we know this for sure, both of the droopiness of the face, it also relates to less presence of pain receptors in the front of the body. So if you've ever had a bulldog where you know their feet can be really sensitive, but their face, you can hold on to those jowls. My bulldog, Costello, would go picking up stuff at the beach and he'd occasionally get a fish hook in his mouth and it looked super painful, and he's like... So not very many pain sensors in the face.