Advances In Vertebrate Neuroethology

This volume presents the proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on "Advances in Vertebrate Neuroethology" held at the University of Kassel, Federal Republic of Germany in August 1981. During the last decade much progress has been made in understanding the neurophysiological bases of behavior in both vertebrates and invertebrates. The reason for this is that a number of new physiological, anatomical, and histochemical techniques have recently been developed for brain research which can now be combined with ethological methods for the analysis of animal behavior to form a new field of research known as "Neuroethology". The term Neuroethology was originally introduced by S.L.Brown and R.W.Hunsperger (1963) in connection with studies on the activation of agonistic behaviors by electrical brain stimulation in cats. Neuroethology was more closely defined by G.Hoyle (1970) in the context of a review on cellular mechanisms underlying behavior of invertebrates. Since the 6th annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience held in Toronto in 1976, Neuroethology has become established as a session topic.

This book is a compendium of the latest research on acoustic communication in these highly vocal vertebrates. The chapters are written by experts currently investigating the physiology and behavior of amphibians, in the laboratory and in the field. This integrated approach provides a neuroethologically-driven and evolutionary basis for our understanding of acoustic communication and its underlying mechanisms. The intended audience includes senior undergraduates, physiologists, zoologists, evolutionary biologists and communication specialists.

Although feeding is not yet been thoroughly studied in many vertebrates taxa, and different conceptual and methodological approaches of the concerned scientists make a synthesis difficult, the aim of the editors is to provide a comprehensive overview of the feeding design in aquatic and terrestrial vertebrates with a detailed description of its functional properties. The book emphasizes the constant interaction between function and form, behaviour and morphology in the course of evolution of the feeding apparatus and way of feeding both complementary and basically related to survival interspecific competition, adaptation to environmental changes and adaptive radiations. Special stress is drawn onquantification of the observational and experimental data on the morphology and biomechanics of the feeding design and its element jaws, teeth, hyoidean apparatus, tongue, in order to allow present and further comparisons in an evolutionary perspective.

Various brain areas of mammals can phyletically be traced back to homologous structures in amphibians. The amphibian brain may thus be regarded as a kind of "microcosm" of the highly complex primate brain, as far as certain homologous structures, sensory functions, and assigned ballistic (pre-planned and pre-pro grammed) motor and behavioral processes are concerned. A variety of fundamental operations that underlie perception, cognition, sensorimotor transformation and its modulation appear to proceed in primate's brain in a way understandable in terms of basic principles which can be investigated more easily by experiments in amphibians. We have learned that progress in the quantitative description and evaluation of these principles can be obtained with guidance from theory. Modeling - supported by simulation - is a process of transforming abstract theory derived from data into testable structures. Where empirical data are lacking or are difficult to obtain because of structural constraints, the modeler makes assumptions and approximations that, by themselves, are a source of hypotheses. If a neural model is then tied to empirical data, it can be used to predict results and hence again to become subject to experimental tests whose resulting data in tum will lead to further improvements of the model. By means of our present models of visuomotor coordination and its modulation by state-dependent inputs, we are just beginning to simulate and analyze how external information is represented within different brain structures and how these structures use these operations to control adaptive behavior.

First multi-year cumulation covers six years: 1965-70.

Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute, La-Baume-les-Aix (Aix-en-Provence), France, June 27-July 7, 1985