Behavioral repertoire of biparental care in Apistogramma trifasciata (Pisces: Cichlidae)

Two 3-month longitudinal studies examined weight loss following a 1-month behavioral intervention (FIT-DSD) focusing on increasing participants’ behavioral flexibility and breaking daily habits. The goal was to break the distal habits hypothesized as playing a role in unhealthy dietary and activity behaviors. The FIT-DSD intervention required participants to do something different each day and to engage in novel weekly activities to expand their behavioral repertoire. These activities were not food- or exercise-related. In Study 1, the FIT-DSD program was compared with a control condition where participants engaged in daily tasks not expected to influence behavioral flexibility. Study 2 used an active or quasicontrol group in which half the participants were also on food diets. Measures in both studies were taken pre-, post-, and post-postintervention. In Study 1, FIT-DSD participants showed greater weight loss that continued post-postintervention. In Study 2, all participants on the FIT-DSD program lost weight, weight loss continued post-postintervention, and participants who were also dieting lost no additional weight. A dose relationship was observed between increases in behavioral flexibility scores and weight loss, and this relationship was mediated by calorie intake. Corresponding reductions in BMI were also present. Increasing behavioral flexibility may be an effective approach for tackling obesity and also provides affective and potential life-skill benefits.

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Faculty Opinions recommendation of Seismic noise influences brood size dynamics in a subterranean insect with biparental care.

Faculty Opinions – Post-Publication Peer Review of the Biomedical Literature ◽

10.3410/f.737437986.793571673 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Fugo Takasu

Keyword(s):

Seismic Noise ◽

Brood Size ◽

Biparental Care

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Importance of Zebrafish as an efficient research model for the screening of novel therapeutics in neurological disorders

CNS & Neurological Disorders - Drug Targets ◽

10.2174/1871527319666201207211927 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 19 ◽

Author(s):

Diksha Saluja ◽

Rishabh Jhanji ◽

Swati Kaushal ◽

Bharti Verma ◽

Neelam Sharma ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Animal Model ◽

Neurological Disorders ◽

Tropical Fish ◽

Mammalian Brain ◽

Behavioral Repertoire ◽

Experimental Procedure ◽

Novel Drugs ◽

Associated Functions ◽

Pharmacology And Toxicology ◽

Rats And Mice

Abstract:: In the previous years of research, the use of animal model becomes very common for the screening of novel drugs. Animal model represents the complex problems of humans into simplest forms which can be extended further to include the experimental procedure. The most successful models in neuroscience, rats and mice, undoubtedly considered as one of the best models to understand the psychology of mammalian brain and its associated functions involved in various behavioral repertoire. Moreover, recently researchers in behavioral neuroscience are focusing more on the use of aquatic animals especially fish as model species due to their simplicity, and cost effectiveness. Zebrafish (Danio rerio) is a tropical fish from minnow family a genetic structure surprisingly 84 % similar to humans. It is gaining popularity as a model to study the mechanism in behavioral neuropharmacology. Moreover, Zebrafish is having numerous advantages over other rodent models like ease in maintenance due to their small size; breeding power is more, transparency of embryos, overall reduced cost of experimentation and many more. Nowadays, it is considered as an ideal model to study the neurobehavioral aspects with relevance to humans. It is also used in varieties of scientific studies like genetics, neuroscience, pharmacology, and toxicology. In this manuscript, we have described the feasibility and importance of Zebrafish as a model for the screening of novel drugs for different neurological disorders.

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Attribution of autonomy and its role in robotic language acquisition

AI & Society ◽

10.1007/s00146-020-01114-8 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Frank Förster ◽

Kaspar Althoefer

Keyword(s):

Language Acquisition ◽

Potential Role ◽

Developmental Psychology ◽

Baseline Scenario ◽

Behavioral Repertoire ◽

High Frequencies ◽

Emotional Displays ◽

And Robotics ◽

Respective Characteristic

AbstractThe false attribution of autonomy and related concepts to artificial agents that lack the attributed levels of the respective characteristic is problematic in many ways. In this article, we contrast this view with a positive viewpoint that emphasizes the potential role of such false attributions in the context of robotic language acquisition. By adding emotional displays and congruent body behaviors to a child-like humanoid robot’s behavioral repertoire, we were able to bring naïve human tutors to engage in so called intent interpretations. In developmental psychology, intent interpretations can be hypothesized to play a central role in the acquisition of emotion, volition, and similar autonomy-related words. The aforementioned experiments originally targeted the acquisition of linguistic negation. However, participants produced other affect- and motivation-related words with high frequencies too and, as a consequence, these entered the robot’s active vocabulary. We will analyze participants’ non-negative emotional and volitional speech and contrast it with participants’ speech in a non-affective baseline scenario. Implications of these findings for robotic language acquisition in particular and artificial intelligence and robotics more generally will also be discussed.

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Tri-axial accelerometry shows differences in energy expenditure and parental effort throughout the breeding season in long-lived raptors

Current Zoology ◽

10.1093/cz/zoab010 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Pascual LÓPEZ-LÓPEZ ◽

Arturo M PERONA ◽

Olga EGEA-CASAS ◽

Jon ETXEBARRIA MORANT ◽

Vicente URIOS

Keyword(s):

Energy Expenditure ◽

Parental Care ◽

Breeding Season ◽

Video Recording ◽

Experimental Manipulation ◽

Biparental Care ◽

Breeding Ecology ◽

Parental Effort ◽

Ecological Data ◽

Movement Trajectories

Abstract Cutting-edge technologies are extremely useful to develop new workflows in studying ecological data, particularly to understand animal behaviour and movement trajectories at the individual level. Although parental care is a well-studied phenomenon, most studies have been focused on direct observational or video recording data, as well as experimental manipulation. Therefore, what happens out of our sight still remains unknown. Using high-frequency GPS/GSM dataloggers and tri-axial accelerometers we monitored 25 Bonelli’s eagles (Aquila fasciata) during the breeding season to understand parental activities from a broader perspective. We used recursive data, measured as number of visits and residence time, to reveal nest attendance patterns of biparental care with role specialization between sexes. Accelerometry data interpreted as the Overall Dynamic Body Acceleration, a proxy of energy expenditure, showed strong differences in parental effort throughout the breeding season and between sexes. Thereby, males increased substantially their energetic requirements, due to the increased workload, while females spent most of the time on the nest. Furthermore, during critical phases of the breeding season, a low percentage of suitable hunting spots in eagles’ territories led them to increase their ranging behaviour in order to find food, with important consequences in energy consumption and mortality risk. Our results highlight the crucial role of males in raptor species exhibiting biparental care. Finally, we exemplify how biologging technologies are an adequate and objective method to study parental care in raptors as well as to get deeper insight into breeding ecology of birds in general.

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Whole body withdrawal circuit and its involvement in the behavioral hierarchy of the mollusk Clione limacina

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.1996.75.2.529 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 75 (2) ◽

pp. 529-537 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

T. P. Norekian ◽

R. A. Satterlie

Keyword(s):

Feeding Behavior ◽

Motor Neurons ◽

Prey Capture ◽

The Body ◽

Whole Body ◽

High Threshold ◽

Behavioral Repertoire ◽

Withdrawal Behavior ◽

Cerebral Neurons ◽

Clione Limacina

1. The behavioral repertoire of the holoplanktonic pteropod mollusk Clione limacina includes a few well-defined behaviors organized in a priority sequence. Whole body withdrawal takes precedence over slow swimming behavior, whereas feeding behavior is dominant over withdrawal. In this study a group of neurons is described in the pleural ganglia, which controls whole body withdrawal behavior in Clione. Each pleural withdrawal (Pl-W) neuron has a high threshold for spike generation and is capable of inducing whole body withdrawal in a semi-intact preparation: retraction of the body-tail, wings, and head. Each Pl-W neuron projects axons into the main central nerves and innervates all major regions of the body. 2. Stimulation of Pl-W neurons produces inhibitory inputs to swim motor neurons that terminate swimming activity in the preparation. In turn, Pl-W neurons receive inhibitory inputs from the cerebral neurons involved in the control of feeding behavior in Clione, neurons underlying extrusion of specialized prey capture appendages. Thus it appears that specific inhibitory connections between motor centers can explain the dominance of withdrawal behavior over slow swimming and feeding over withdrawal in Clione.

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