Behavioral Neurobiology Commons^™

The Effects Of Floral Attributes And Conspecifics On Bumble Bee Forager Memory, Lucas Lauter, Tiffany Dinh

Undergraduate Research Symposium

What do bees remember about flowers? These memories are important for both bees and flowers. The bees have better foraging success and gain more nectar and pollen from flowers when they remember the most rewarding flower types. More memorable flowers will be visited more frequently, resulting in more successful pollination for the plant. At the same time, bees can also learn about flowers from other bees and may remember this information differently. We are training and testing three floral cues and a single social cue to see how the different types of cues affect their learning and memory of rewarding …

Neurotranscriptomic Changes Associated With Chick-Directed Parental Care In Adult Non-Reproductive Japanese Quail, Patricia C. Lopes, Robert De Brujin

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

For many species, parental care critically affects offspring survival. But what drives animals to display parental behaviours towards young? In mammals, pregnancy-induced physiological transformations seem key in preparing the neural circuits that lead towards attraction (and reduced-aggression) to young. Beyond mammalian maternal behaviour, knowledge of the neural mechanisms that underlie young-directed parental care is severely lacking. We took advantage of a domesticated bird species, the Japanese quail, for which parental behaviour towards chicks can be induced in virgin non-reproductive adults through a sensitization procedure, a process that is not effective in all animals. We used the variation in parental responses …

Wild Mice With Different Social Network Sizes Vary In Brain Gene Expression, Patricia C. Lopes, Barbara König

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Background

Appropriate social interactions influence animal fitness by impacting several processes, such as mating, territory defense, and offspring care. Many studies shedding light on the neurobiological underpinnings of social behavior have focused on nonapeptides (vasopressin, oxytocin, and homologues) and on sexual or parent-offspring interactions. Furthermore, animals have been studied under artificial laboratory conditions, where the consequences of behavioral responses may not be as critical as when expressed under natural environments, therefore obscuring certain physiological responses. We used automated recording of social interactions of wild house mice outside of the breeding season to detect individuals at both tails of a distribution …

Sensory Perception, Adrian Rodriguez-Contreras

Open Educational Resources

Different types of sensory systems with their functional modalities will be presented. The biological bases for how these functions are generated and modified will then be described. As vision is the principal means of perception, we will focus in this course most on visual processing. Scientific data will be integrated into the lectures, such that students develop critical skills in analyzing data and proposing hypotheses.

The Effect Of Hypoxia On The Nervous System Of Aplysia Californica, Victor Escalona, Lynne Annette Fieber, Joseph Serafy

2018 Entries

The intertidal zone of California’s Pacific coast is home to the marine snail known as Aplysia californica, an organism that has found use as a model in experiments focused on understanding the basis of learning and memory. Its simple nervous system consisting of easily identifiable neurons, its life span of a year, and a readily-accessed aquacultured source from the National Resource for Aplysia make it an excellent model for ontogenetic, neural, and behavioral studies. Here, however, the focus was on strategies this species uses to survive in an environment rife with risks of hypoxia and desiccation during the tidal …

Social Context-Dependent Activity In Marmoset Frontal Cortex Populations During Natural Conversations, Samuel U. Nummela, Vladimir Jovanovic, Lisa De La Mothe, Cory T. Miller

Psychology Faculty Research

Communication is an inherently interactive process that weaves together the fabric of both human and nonhuman primate societies. To investigate the properties of the primate brain during active social signaling, we recorded the responses of frontal cortex neurons as freely moving marmosets engaged in conversational exchanges with a visually occluded virtual marmoset. We found that small changes in firing rate (∼1 Hz) occurred across a broadly distributed population of frontal cortex neurons when marmosets heard a conspecific vocalization, and that these changes corresponded to subjects' likelihood of producing or withholding a vocal reply. Although the contributions of individual neurons were …

Experimental Exposure To Urban And Pink Noise Affects Brain Development And Song Learning In Zebra Finches (Taenopygia Guttata), Dominique A. Potvin, Michael T. Curcio, John P. Swaddle, Scott A. Macdougall-Shackleton

Arts & Sciences Articles

Recently, numerous studies have observed changes in bird vocalizations—especially song—in urban habitats. These changes are often interpreted as adaptive, since they increase the active space of the signal in its environment. However, the proximate mechanisms driving cross-generational changes in song are still unknown. We performed a captive experiment to identify whether noise experienced during development affects song learning and the development of song-control brain regions. Zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) were bred while exposed, or not exposed, to recorded traffic urban noise (Study 1) or pink noise (Study 2). We recorded the songs of male offspring and compared these …

Responses Of Primate Frontal Cortex Neurons During Natural Vocal Communication, Cory T. Miller, A. Wren Thomas, Samuel U. Nummela, Lisa A. De La Mothe

Psychology Faculty Research

The role of primate frontal cortex in vocal communication and its significance in language evolution have a controversial history. While evidence indicates that vocalization processing occurs in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex neurons, vocal-motor activity has been conjectured to be primarily subcortical and suggestive of a distinctly different neural architecture from humans. Direct evidence of neural activity during natural vocal communication is limited, as previous studies were performed in chair-restrained animals. Here we recorded the activity of single neurons across multiple regions of prefrontal and premotor cortex while freely moving marmosets engaged in a natural vocal behavior known as antiphonal calling. Our …

Feedforward And Feedback Projections Of Caudal Belt And Parabelt Areas Of Auditory Cortex: Refining The Hierarchical Model, Troy A. Hackett, Lisa A. De La Mothe, Corrie R. Camalier, Arnaud Falchier, Peter Lakatos, Yoshinao Kajikawa, Charles E. Schroeder

Psychology Faculty Research

Our working model of the primate auditory cortex recognizes three major regions (core, belt, parabelt), subdivided into thirteen areas. The connections between areas are topographically ordered in a manner consistent with information flow along two major anatomical axes: core-belt-parabelt and caudal-rostral. Remarkably, most of the connections supporting this model were revealed using retrograde tracing techniques. Little is known about laminar circuitry, as anterograde tracing of axon terminations has rarely been used. The purpose of the present study was to examine the laminar projections of three areas of auditory cortex, pursuant to analysis of all areas. The selected areas were: middle …

The Effects Of Construction Activity On The Behavior Of Captive Rhesus Monkeys (Macaca Mulatta), Courtney A. Begnoche

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Previous studies have revealed insight into the effects of noises and vibrations on rodents, livestock, and zoo animals, but there is little information about such effects on non-human primates. This study aimed to assess the impact of construction activity on the behavior of animals in a non-human primate (rhesus macaque) facility. Construction activity and modified frequency behavioral data were divided into three phases: baseline (~3 months prior to construction), roof (construction on top of the animal facility), and honors (construction of 7 new buildings adjacent to the facility). We hypothesized that anxiety behaviors (scratch and yawn) would be increased during …

Insightful Problem Solving In An Asian Elephant, Preston Foerder, Marie Galloway, Tony Barthel, Donald E. Moore Iii, Diana Reiss

Publications and Research

The ‘‘aha’’ moment or the sudden arrival of the solution to a problem is a common human experience. Spontaneous problem solving without evident trial and error behavior in humans and other animals has been referred to as insight. Surprisingly, elephants, thought to be highly intelligent, have failed to exhibit insightful problem solving in previous cognitive studies. We tested whether three Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) would use sticks or other objects to obtain food items placed out-of-reach and overhead. Without prior trial and error behavior, a 7-year-old male Asian elephant showed spontaneous problem solving by moving a large plastic cube, on …

Sheep Updates 2005 - Part 1, R. W. Kelly, R. Kingwell, A. R. Bray, Chris Oldham, Graeme Martin, D. Blanche, D. Ferguson, Keith Crocker, Di Evans

Sheep Updates

This session covers seven papers from different authors: Boosting lambing percentages of WA sheep flocks. R.W. Kelly CSIRO Livestock Industries, Floreat WA , R. Kingwell Department of Agriculture WA, Kiwis can fly - 30% higher lambing in 15 years, AR Bray, Meat and Wool New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand Rams are not a trivial expense, so what can you do to maximise on your investment? Chri Oldham, Department of Agriculture Western Australia, Graeme Martin, University of West Australia. Care for mun - fetal programming, lamb survival and lifetime performance. RW Kelly CSIRO Livestock Industries, Floreat WA Boost lamb survival - …

Some Parameters Of The Second-Order Conditioning Of Fear In Rats, Alan Kamil

Papers in Behavior in Biological Sciences

The effects of CS1 duration, partial reinforcement, and trace conditioning on second-order conditioned suppression were investigated, employing 64 rats as Ss. In Experiment 1, the clearest second-order conditioning was obtained when CS1 duration was the same during both the first- and the second-order conditioning phases of the experiment. In Experiment 2, somewhat better second-order conditioning was obtained when first-order conditioning had been under conditions of partial reinforcement, delay CS-US pairing. In neither experiment were CS1 suppression and CS2 suppression during second-order testing well correlated. This aspect of the results raised the question of the influence of nonclassical conditioning factors on …