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Neuroethology
Neuroethology is the evolutionary and comparative approach to the study of animal behavior and its underlying mechanistic control by the nervous system. It is an interdisciplinary science that combines both neuroscience (study of the nervous system) and ethology (study of animal behavior in natural conditions). A central theme of neuroethology, which differentiates it from other branches of neuroscience, is its focus on behaviors that have been favored by natural selection (e.g., finding mates, navigation, locomotion, and predator avoidance) rather than on behaviors that are specific to a particular disease state or laboratory experiment. Neuroethologists hope to uncover general principles of the nervous system from the study of animals with exaggerated or specialized behaviors. They endeavor to understand how the nervous system translates biologically relevant stimuli into natural behavior. For example, many bats are capable of echolocation which is used for prey capture and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jörg-Peter Ewert
Jörg-Peter Ewert (born 1938) is a German neurophysiologist and researcher in the field of Neuroethology. From 1973 to 2006, he served as a university professor (Chair of Zoology/Physiology) in the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of Kassel, Germany. Career From 1958 to 1965 Jörg-Peter Ewert studied the specialties biology, chemistry, and geography at the University of Göttingen. He graduated in 1965 and took up the specialty of zoology under the direction of the behavior physiologist Georg Birukow. The subject of Ewert's PhD (Dr.rer.nat.) dissertation was: "The influence of peripheral sensory and central nervous system responses on the readiness of the orienting movement in the common toad". Later he passed the state examination for the lecturing at secondary schools. After 1966, he was a scientific assistant at the zoological institute of the Darmstadt University of Technology at Darmstadt. First he worked under the developmental physiologist Wolfgang Luther ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Krogh's Principle
Krogh's principle states that "for such a large number of problems there will be some animal of choice, or a few such animals, on which it can be most conveniently studied." This concept is central to those disciplines of biology that rely on the comparative method, such as neuroethology, comparative physiology, and more recently functional genomics. History Krogh's principle is named after the Danish physiologist August Krogh, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology for his contributions to understanding the anatomy and physiology of the capillary system, who described it in The American Journal of Physiology in 1929. However, the principle was first elucidated nearly 60 years prior to this, and in almost the same words as Krogh, in 1865 by Claude Bernard, the French instigator of experimental medicine, on page 27 of his "Introduction à l'étude de la médecine expérimentale": Krogh wrote the following in his 1929 treatise on the then current 'status' of physiology (emphasis a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developmental biology, cytology, psychology, physics, computer science, chemistry, medicine, statistics, and mathematical modeling to understand the fundamental and emergent properties of neurons, glia and neural circuits. The understanding of the biological basis of learning, memory, behavior, perception, and consciousness has been described by Eric Kandel as the "epic challenge" of the biological sciences. The scope of neuroscience has broadened over time to include different approaches used to study the nervous system at different scales. The techniques used by neuroscientists have expanded enormously, from molecular and cellular studies of individual neurons to imaging of sensory, motor and cognitive tasks in the brain. Hist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Animal Echolocation
Echolocation, also called bio sonar, is a biological active sonar used by several animal groups, both in the air and underwater. Echolocating animals emit calls and listen to the Echo (phenomenon) , echoes of those calls that return from various objects near them. They use these echoes to locate and identify the objects. Echolocation is used for animal navigation , navigation, foraging, and predation, hunting prey. Echolocation calls can be Frequency modulation, frequency modulated (FM, varying in pitch during the call) or constant frequency (CF). FM offers precise range discrimination to localize the prey, at the cost of reduced operational range. CF allows both the prey's velocity and its movements to be detected by means of the Doppler effect. FM may be best for close, cluttered environments, while CF may be better in open environments or for hunting while perched. Echolocating animals include mammals, especially odontocetes (toothed whales) and some bat species, and, using s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sensory Maps
Sensory maps are areas of the brain which responds to sensory stimulation, and are spatially organized according to some feature of the sensory stimulation. In some cases the sensory map is simply a topographic representation of a sensory surface such as the skin, cochlea, or retina. In other cases it represents other stimulus properties resulting from neuronal computation and is generally ordered in a manner that reflects the periphery. An example is the somatosensory map which is a projection of the skin's surface in the brain that arranges the processing of tactile sensation. This type of somatotopic map is the most common, possibly because it allows for physically neighboring areas of the brain to react to physically similar stimuli in the periphery or because it allows for greater motor control. The somatosensory cortex is adjacent to the primary motor cortex which is similarly mapped. Sensory maps may play an important role in facilitating motor responses. Other examples of se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coincidence Detection In Neurobiology
Coincidence detection is a neuronal process in which a neural circuit encodes information by detecting the occurrence of temporally close but spatially distributed input signals. Coincidence detectors influence neuronal information processing by reducing temporal jitter and spontaneous activity, allowing the creation of variable associations between separate neural events in memory. The study of coincidence detectors has been crucial in neuroscience with regards to understanding the formation of computational maps in the brain. Principles of coincidence detection Coincidence detection relies on separate inputs converging on a common target. For example (Fig. 1), in a basic neural circuit with two input neurons—A and B—that have excitatory synaptic terminals converging on a single output neuron (C), if each input neuron's EPSP is sub-threshold for an action potential at C, then C cannot fire unless the two inputs from A and B are temporally close. The synchronous arrival ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fixed Action Pattern
"Fixed action pattern" is an Ethology, ethological term describing an instinctive behavioral sequence that is highly stereotyped and species-characteristic. Fixed action patterns are said to be produced by the innate releasing mechanism, a "hard-wired" neural network, in response to a Fixed action pattern#Sign stimulus, sign/key stimulus or releaser. Once released, a fixed action pattern runs to completion. This term is often associated with Konrad Lorenz, who is the founder of the concept. Lorenz identified six characteristics of fixed action patterns. These characteristics state that fixed action patterns are stereotyped, complex, species-characteristic, released, triggered, and independent of experience. Fixed action patterns have been observed in many species, but most notably in fish and birds. Classic studies by Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen, Niko Tinbergen involve male stickleback mating behavior and greylag goose egg-retrieval behavior. Fixed action patterns have be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jamming Avoidance Response
The jamming avoidance response is a behavior of some species of electric fish#Strongly and weakly electric fish, weakly electric fish. It occurs when two electric fish with wave discharges meet – if their discharge frequency, frequencies are very similar, each fish shifts its discharge frequency to increase the difference between the two. By doing this, both fish prevent jamming of their sense of electroreception. The behavior has been most intensively studied in the South American species ''Glass knifefish, Eigenmannia virescens''. It is also present in other Gymnotiformes such as ''Apteronotus'', as well as in the African species ''Gymnarchus niloticus''. The jamming avoidance response was one of the first complex behavioral responses in a vertebrate to have its neural circuitry completely specified. As such, it holds special significance in the field of neuroethology. Discovery The jamming avoidance response (JAR) was discovered by Akira Watanabe and Kimihisa Takeda in 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electric Fish
An electric fish is any fish that can Bioelectrogenesis, generate electric fields, whether to sense things around them, for defence, or to stun prey. Most fish able to produce shocks are also electroreceptive, meaning that they can sense electric fields. The only exception is the Uranoscopidae, stargazer family (Uranoscopidae). Electric fish, although a small minority of all fishes, include both oceanic and freshwater species, and both cartilaginous and bony fishes. Electric fish produce their electrical fields from an Electric organ (biology), electric organ. This is made up of electrocytes, modified muscle or nerve cells, specialized for producing strong electric fields, used to locate prey, for Anti-predator adaptation, defence against predators, and for Signalling theory, signalling, such as in courtship. Electric organ discharges are two types, pulse and wave, and vary both by species and by function. Electric fish have evolved many specialised behaviours. The predatory Cla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Niko Tinbergen
Nikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen ( , ; 15 April 1907 – 21 December 1988) was a Dutch biologist and ornithologist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz for their discoveries concerning the organization and elicitation of individual and social behavior patterns in animals. He is regarded as one of the founders of modern ethology, the study of animal behavior. In 1951, he published ''The Study of Instinct'', an influential book on animal behaviour. In the 1960s, he collaborated with filmmaker Hugh Falkus on a series of wildlife films, including ''The Riddle of the Rook'' (1972) and ''Signals for Survival'' (1969), which won the Italia prize in that year and the American blue ribbon in 1971. Early life and education Born in The Hague, Netherlands, he was one of five children of Dirk Cornelis Tinbergen and his wife Jeannette van Eek. His brother, Jan Tinbergen, won the first Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Konrad Lorenz
Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (Austrian ; 7 November 1903 – 27 February 1989) was an Austrian zoology, zoologist, ethology, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch. He is often regarded as one of the founders of modern ethology, the study of animal behavior. He developed an approach that began with an earlier generation, including his teacher Oskar Heinroth. Lorenz studied instinct, instinctive behavior in animals, especially in Greylag goose, greylag geese and Western jackdaw, jackdaws. Working with geese, he investigated the principle of imprinting (psychology), imprinting, the process by which some nidifugous birds (i.e. birds that leave their nest early) bond instinctively with the first moving object that they see within the first hours of hatching. Although Lorenz did not discover the topic, he became widely known for his descriptions of imprinting as an instinctive bond. In 1936, he m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
