The Life Sciences Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future (1970) / Chapter Skim
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Behavior
Behavior
Pages 109-114
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From page 109... ...
Some, concerned with specific problems, use any particularly appropriate animal as a tool; others are fascinated by particular kinds of animals. Some approach animal investigation primarily as a means of understanding human behavior; others are not primarily motivated by the potential social utility of their work.
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From page 110... ...
In this sense the newborn child is not simply a "clean slate," but has built-in attributes that are subject to modification with experience. Examples of such environmental influences include the modified behavior of the genetically aggressive rats cited above; the impaired visual-motor coordination of an adult monkey if, during the early months of life, it is prevented from visually perceiving the consequences of voluntary movements; the strikingly abnormal social and sexual behavior of monkeys that are reared without normal social association with other monkeys of their own age; and the well-known "imprinting," as the maternal object, of the first moving object to come within the ken of a newborn duckling.
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From page 111... ...
In no instance to date has the intrinsic clockwork actually been established. Simple motivational behavior lends itself readily to experimental approach, permitting analysis of questions concerning such behavioral attributes as drive and satiation, reward and punishment, pleasure and pain, and, particularly, physiological regulations of hunger, thirst, sexual and maternal behavior, and temperature regulation.
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From page 112... ...
Not only do the sensory mechanisms involved in their orientation require analysis, but also attention must be given to the equally significant questions of motivation, genetic programming in relation to individual learning, and the ecological advantages of migration, which suffice to offset the exertion and hazards of such extensive travel. The homing behavior evident in numerous species is a related phenomenon.
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From page 113... ...
Injection of the opposite sex hormone into adolescent or adult animals does not elicit a striking change in sexual behavior. However, if the hormone is administered during embryonic life, the nervous system takes on the character associated with the sex of the administered hormone, at least as measured by the ability of the adult animal to respond to the sex hormone when it is administered later.
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From page 114... ...
An important clue may reside in the fact that puromycin blocks protein synthesis by interrupting growth of polypeptide chains, whereas cycloheximide somehow prevents the normal breakdown of polysomes so that the mRNA remains in the cell, inaccessible to the enzymes that normally degrade it after about 30 minutes. These are the most recent observations, and the fact that the experiments are at all productive gives hope of the possibility that the intrinsic nature of the learning process may yet come to light.
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