Behavioral biology最新文献

The present study uses dummy presentations to explore the effects of color patterns on behavior. Four patterns are used: spotted, barred, spotted/barred, and plain. Of 15 behaviors observed only 5 were found to be affected by color patterns. These were: Lateral Display, Frontal Display, Charge, Tailbeat, and Bite. The results demonstrate that the spotted pattern, indicative of a territorial animal, elicits high levels of Frontal Display, Bite, Tailbeat, and Charge and low levels of Lateral Display while the barred pattern, indicative of a submissive or escaping animal, has the opposite effect. The spotted/barred pattern elicits intermediate levels of Bite, Charge, and Lateral Display but levels of Frontal Display and Tailbeat similar to that seen in the presence of the barred pattern. The plain pattern elicits low levels of all the above behaviors. These results are discussed in terms of internal state changes.

In four experiments using 312 adult albino rats, locomotor avoidance and suppression of drinking were used to monitor learned associations between spatial cues and injections of poison or saline. Rats injected with hypertonic LiCl or hypertonic NaCl immediately upon removal from one side of a two-compartment shuttlebox free of ingestible substances later showed locomotor avoidance of that side. Other animals that were identically trained and later offered novel fluids in either the compartment paired with injection or the compartment paired with noninjection did not differentially suppress drinking. When injections were isotonic, the NaCl-injected animals displayed neither ingestive nor locomotor aversions while the LiCl-injected animals showed a place-specific reluctance to drink before any locomotor avoidance appeared. When injections were administered 4 min after removal from the treatment-paired compartment, LiCl-injected rats developed discriminated suppression of drinking more rapidly than locomotor position preferences whereas NaCl-injected rats displayed no acquisition. Animals injected with LiCl or NaCl 4 min before being placed into the treatment-paired compartment showed no significant acquisition by either ingestive or locomotor measure. These interactions between type of test, nature and concentration of injected agent, and time of injection, not explicable in terms of different response thresholds for a single association, are interpreted as the consequence of hypertonically induced somatic pain associations formed at short CS—US intervals being prepotent to affect locomotor activity, and toxin-induced visceral pain associations formed at short or long CS—US intervals being prepotent to affect ingestive behavior. When both were potentially present with short interstimulus intervals, acute somatic pain apparently overshadowed visceral pain. Some implications of prepotent response systems for the manifestation of information about specific USs are considered in the light of recent failures of the stimulus equivalence hypothesis.

Dietary obesity and dietary leanness were produced in adult male rats by feeding them either an assortment of palatable foods, or an unpalatable quinine-adulterated diet. When deprived of food the dietary obese rats initially showed little change in wheel running activity but as their weight fell to below normal levels they displayed a terminal burst of activity similar to that seen in normal-weight control subjects. Dietary lean rats, on the other hand, increased their wheel running activity at an accelerated rate, relative to normal-weight controls, when food deprived. Expressing the activity data as a function of percentage normal body weight eliminated these group differences. The results demonstrate that body weight must fall to some relatively fixed, i.e., diet independent, critical level before activity increases during a fast. Therefore, as measured by deprivation-induced activity, dietary obese, dietary lean, and normal-weight rats do not equally defend their particular weight levels.

Results of a recent study of Danguir and Nicolaidis suggest that pairs of rats trained to avoid ingesting LiCl solution will physically restrain naive conspecifics and actively interfere with the naive rats' ingestion of a similar-tasting NaCl solution. If confirmed, this result would be the first controlled demonstration of an active role of the transmitter of behavior in a social learning situation. Replication with more precise measure of NaCl ingestion revealed that evidence in the Danguir and Nicolaidis study of socially induced reduced consumption by naive subjects resulted from a measurement error. The observed small intake of NaCl by naive subjects may be interpreted as resulting from neophobis rather than social interaction.

Reproductive cycles of females in a breeding group of 10 to 18 patas monkeys (Erythrocebus patas) were followed over 5 years using vaginal smear and lavage techniques. Two hundred hours of behavioral observations were made during the same period. The social organization centered on an inner circle of six females with a complex web of interrelationships; other females, and males, had a peripheral position linked to the central circle at one or two points only. Mating activity was periodic: either several or no females were receptive at one time. Most mating activity and most conceptions occurred between September and November but there was no strict association of mating periods with a particular season. Menstrual cycles in mating periods differed from those in nonmating periods in having heavier menstrual bleeding, more vaginal epithelial activity throughout the cycle, and midcycle leukocyte peaks were common. There was very little differentiation of stages of the menstrual cycle in terms of vaginal histology, but there was a clear midcycle peak in heterosexual interaction, especially during mating periods. Friendly and avoiding interactions between females did not change during their cycles or when they were pregnant, but did increase dramatically in early lactation. The return to receptivity postpartum was greatly influenced by the social environment. It seemed that sexual activity had a social facilitatory effect but was in turn inhibited by the presence of small infants. This interactive mechanism favors increased reproductive synchrony within the group.

Social-investigatory responses of intact and castrate male and female rats were observed when initially exposed to a novel conspecific. Mature males castrated prepuberally at 1, 10, or 30 days of age engaged in normal social-investigatory behavior with the exception that anogenital sniff frequencies were comparable to that of intact or castrated females and significantly less than that of intact males; postpuberal castrates failed to differ from intact males. When treated with exogenous testosterone, anogenital sniff frequencies of prepuberal castrates increased significantly. The results confirm the hypothesis that perineal sniffing behavior is androgen dependent and suggest that androgens amplify the specific behavior pattern that serves to increase sensitivity to biologically significant olfactory stimuli of social origin.

When rats are paired in a modified Skinner box with a water dipper and a bar attached to opposite walls, a worker—parasite relationship develops. One of the rats performs most of the bar-pressing whereas the partner receives the reward almost without working. The influence of sex on this social interaction was studied through testing 14 pairs composed of a male and a female rat. The proportion of workers and parasites was the same for male and females. The role of sex in competitive situations between rats is discussed.

Rats were trained in a one-trial inhibitory (passive) avoidance task. Each animal received a 30-min pretrial injection of saline, phenoxybenzamine, or propranolol and an immediate post-trial injection of saline or epinephrine. Animals were tested for retention 24 hr later. In the absence of pretreatment with either adrenergic blocking agent, epinephrine enhanced retention of training with low footshock and impaired retention of training with high footshock. Pretrial injections of propranolol, but not phenoxybenzamine, attenuated epinephrine-produced enhancement of retention performance. Conversely, pretrial treatment with phenoxybenzamine, but not propranolol, attenuated epinephrine-produced retention impairment. Post-training brain norepinephrine concentrations were sensitive to the training-treatment conditions; the extent of a transient decrease (maximal 10 min after training) predicted, in most cases, the retention performance observed in comparably trained and treated animals. These findings thus extend and corroborate our previous evidence suggesting that hormonally mediated central noradrenergic activity may underlie retrograde amnesia and enhancement of memory processes. In addition, these findings suggest that memory storage processing may be modulated by normal post-training hormonal and central aminergic responses to training.

Young chicks with one eye occluded were subjected to a food aversion conditioning procedure in which an unfamiliar colored liquid (the conditioned stimulus) was paired with delayed LiCl-induced illness (the unconditioned stimulus). In a subsequent preference test, chicks displayed marked avoidance of the liquid whether tested with the trained or the untrained eye open, demonstrating substantial interocular transfer of the monocularly acquired visual food aversion after the single conditioning session and despite the long interstimulus interval. A possible role of the unconditioned stimulus in determining interocular transfer of avoidance habits in birds is discussed.

Twenty-five eastern chipmunks, Tamias striatus, were studied for 3 years in southeast Ohio. The effect of five factors on the sequential patterning of their behavior was examined using information theory and analysis of dyad transitions. Behavior is more stereotyped (1) in adults than young, (2) in males than females, (3) in the breeding season compared to the nonbreeding season, (4) away from than near home sites, and (5) when a conspecific is nearby rather than when no conspecific is in the vicinity. Stereotypy was also affected by interactions of factors 1 through 5. Differential frequency of specific dyad transitions occurred with the five factors. Stereotypy of behavior with respect to social organization is discussed.