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Behavior: Introduction
Behavior
Behaviour =
Interactions Starr et al.
Chapter 43
others
environment
innate = genetic
Ethology: Ethology proposes that
The study of the behavior of animals in their natural environment
•  Most animal behavior is innate - –  the result of genetics
–  “hard-wired” by connections between neurons
Niko Tinbergen
Konrad Lorenz
Nobel Prize in Medicine/Physiology, 1973
Karl von Frisch
•  Innate behavior may include a predisposition to learn appropriate
responses (rather than a fixed response)
•  Examples are taken from
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Insects
Birds
Fish
Human infants
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Instinctive (Innate) Behavior
•  Fixed action patterns
–  a stimulus elicits a short sequence of actions
•  not based on experience (= not learned)
•  doesn’t vary
•  can’t be “decided against” – an animal can’t help but respond
–  Differs from a reflex because it is more complex
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Innate behavior:
Tinbergen & stickleback mating
Innate Behavior: Insects
•  Without parental care, how do
insects know how to
–  find food?
–  recognize mates?
–  lay eggs?
•  Example: the apple maggot fly
(Rhagoletis pomonella.)
–  Lay eggs on apples
–  Respond to any red round object
•  Exaggerated color, size work better
–  Superstimulus
•  Response is termed –  fixed action pattern
von Frisch: communication in social bees
a. Female follows red-bellied male;
b. Male directs female to nest
c. When female is in nest, male prods her tail; female lays egg
d. Male chases her from nest, fertilizes eggs.
What are the essential cues for the female? 2
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away from sun
Innate Behavior: Birds
Seagull chicks peck at red spot on
adults' bill.
right angle to sun
Round dance: food near hive
Waggle dance: speed signals distance
toward sun
How does the cowbird
learn its song?
Konrad Lorenz: imprinting in goslings
-- a combination of innate and learned behavior
innate + learned behavior
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Tinbergen’s Study of Solitary Wasps: Insects can learn
Control of Innate Behaviors
•  Concepts relatively simple
•  Details …
Zebra finches, studied by David Clayton
at UIUC (Cell & Developmental Biology)
–  Axon-guiding proteins
direct connections between
neurons during
development
–  Drosophila has ± 100,000
neurons in brain
–  1 gene encodes axonguiding protein
•  ~ 38,000 different variants
•  Identify a neuronal circuit
–  specific sensory neurons
–  and their interneurons –  and their motor neurons
Synaptic Development:
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Critical periods during development
Use it or lose it
–  Kittens in striped rooms
–  Strabismus & ‘lazy eye’
Mechanisms of learning
–  Alterations in synapse formation
•  Short-term
–  Neurotransmitter levels
•  Intermediate
–  Changes in sensitivity of
neurons
•  Long-term
–  Synapse formation
Need for stimulating environment - lifelong!
Model animals
–  Aplysia
–  Rats
•  Bill Greenough, Psychology
Animal vs Human Behavior
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All animals can learn
Primates
–  Communicate
–  Learn from each other
–  Use tools –  Teach use of tools
Dolphins
Parrots
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Self- Awareness &
Strategizing
•  Strategizing
–  Baboons form alliances
•  Self-awareness
–  Recognizing self in mirror
•  Behavior is a continuum across species
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