NCSU Course ZO410 Lecture:
Development of Behavior

• development viewed as process of ball rolling down mountainside- landscaped determined by genes, outside environmental influences necessary to move ball to another channel

• development is a buffering or homeostatic process
• traits with genetic background are protected from environmental input
• critical for fitness
• three variations:
           1) Restricted development: complete neural template
           2) Semi-restricted development: partial template, neural networks completed through learning
                            - "sensitive" or "critical" periods when experience must occur for normal behavior to develop
           3) Flexible development: open template, learning/experience critical in determining whether or not behavior is expressed

    Filial imprinting: development of social attachment to thing or animal

• critical period - time when response is greatest.
• sensitive period - time when response is possible
• sheep & goats - due to odor cues
• predator avoidance, socialization

    Sexual Imprinting: learn to direct sexual behavior at some stimulus organism and not others

• species-isolating mechanism
• longer contact required than in filial imprinting

• Curlew: restricted, imprint on curlew parent only
• Chickens and ducks: semi-restricted, auditory but no visual template
• Turkeys and geese: flexible, no auditory or visual- first moving object
• explanation for above differences??

• Deprivation experiments (Harlow's - rhesus monkey)
• Levels of deprivation:
• Total isolation
• Total isolation with inanimate surrogate
• Peer group
• Mother only
• Effects : (depends on level)
• Abnormal behavioral patterns - stereotopies, self aggression
• Lack of responsiveness to conspecifics.
• Inept socially
• Inept sexually
• Abusive to own offspring
• Reduced immune response
• Rearing with a dog (Mason)
• Play behavior: Primarily limited to birds and mammals
• Social play
• Exercise play
• Exploration play
• Functions of play

o Ethogram
o fixed action pattern
o innate releasing mechanism
o proximate/ultimate
o descriptive/comparative/experimental
o Tinbergenís four "questions" (ABCDEF)
o Darwinís lack of knowledge aboutÖ
o Darwinís major concepts
o fitness
o cost-benefit analysis/ comparative approach--convergent, divergent
o links between genetics and behavior (twin studies, Drosophila, hybridization, transgenic, artificial selection, etc)
o vertebrate nervous system developments
o synapses-- types, how function
o neurons
o sensory filtering (examples?)
o bird song development, sexual and seasonal differences
o Neurotransmitters- examples, fxns
o integration with neuromodulators
o summation of EPSP and IPSP
o removal from synapse
o Hormones-- glands, fxns
o hypothalamo-pituitary connection
o peptide/steroid
o pulses, feedback
o anterior/posterior pituitary
o heritability -- calculate, interpret
o behavioral/hormonal coordination (ex.?)
o estrus cycles-- general features, purpose
o spontaneous/induced ovulation
o organizational/activational effects
o EDCs