Decision-making in invertebrates

Decision-making in invertebrates PDF Author: Björn Brembs
Publisher: Frontiers E-books
ISBN: 2889192024
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
Not since Paul the octopus became famous during the 2010 soccer world cup have scientists realized that decision-making is not a capacity exclusive to the so-called 'higher' animals. Invertebrate animals show an amazing capacity for making decisions even if the external circumstances provide little or no information. This Research Topic celebrates the diversity of decision-making by showcasing the most well-studied cases in a range of invertebrate species.

Decision-making in invertebrates

Decision-making in invertebrates PDF Author: Björn Brembs
Publisher: Frontiers E-books
ISBN: 2889192024
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 148

Get Book Here

Book Description
Not since Paul the octopus became famous during the 2010 soccer world cup have scientists realized that decision-making is not a capacity exclusive to the so-called 'higher' animals. Invertebrate animals show an amazing capacity for making decisions even if the external circumstances provide little or no information. This Research Topic celebrates the diversity of decision-making by showcasing the most well-studied cases in a range of invertebrate species.

The Oxford Handbook of Invertebrate Neurobiology

The Oxford Handbook of Invertebrate Neurobiology PDF Author: John H. Byrne
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190456787
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1304

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Book Description
Invertebrates have proven to be extremely useful model systems for gaining insights into the neural and molecular mechanisms of sensory processing, motor control and higher functions such as feeding behavior, learning and memory, navigation, and social behavior. A major factor in their enormous contributions to neuroscience is the relative simplicity of invertebrate nervous systems. In addition, some invertebrates, primarily the molluscs, have large cells, which allow analyses to take place at the level of individually identified neurons. Individual neurons can be surgically removed and assayed for expression of membrane channels, levels of second messengers, protein phosphorylation, and RNA and protein synthesis. Moreover, peptides and nucleotides can be injected into individual neurons. Other invertebrate model systems such as Drosophila and Caenorhabditis elegans offer tremendous advantages for obtaining insights into the neuronal bases of behavior through the application of genetic approaches. The Oxford Handbook of Invertebrate Neurobiology reviews the many neurobiological principles that have emerged from invertebrate analyses, such as motor pattern generation, mechanisms of synaptic transmission, and learning and memory. It also covers general features of the neurobiology of invertebrate circadian rhythms, development, and regeneration and reproduction. Some neurobiological phenomena are species-specific and diverse, especially in the domain of the neuronal control of locomotion and camouflage. Thus, separate chapters are provided on the control of swimming in annelids, crustaea and molluscs, locomotion in hexapods, and camouflage in cephalopods. Unique features of the handbook include chapters that review social behavior and intentionality in invertebrates. A chapter is devoted to summarizing past contributions of invertebrates to the understanding of nervous systems and identifying areas for future studies that will continue to advance that understanding.

Neuroethics and Nonhuman Animals

Neuroethics and Nonhuman Animals PDF Author: L. Syd M Johnson
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030310116
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
This edited volume represents a unique addition to the available literature on animal ethics, animal studies, and neuroethics. Its goal is to expand discussions on animal ethics and neuroethics by weaving together different threads: philosophy of mind and animal minds, neuroscientific study of animal minds, and animal ethics. Neuroethical questions concerning animals’ moral status, animal minds and consciousness, animal pain, and the adequacy of animal models for neuropsychiatric disease have long been topics of debate in philosophy and ethics, and more recently also in neuroscientific research. The book presents a transdisciplinary blend of voices, underscoring different perspectives on the broad questions of how neuroscience can contribute to our understanding of nonhuman minds, and on debates over the moral status of nonhuman animals. All chapters were written by outstanding scholars in philosophy, neuroscience, animal behavior, biology, neuroethics, and bioethics, and cover a range of issues and species/taxa. Given its scope, the book will appeal to scientists and students interested in the debate on animal ethics, while also offering an important resource for future researchers. Chapter 13 is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.

Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals

Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals PDF Author: National Institutes of Health (U.S.). Office for Protection from Research Risks
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Animal experimentation
Languages : en
Pages : 40

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Book Description


Rebugging the Planet

Rebugging the Planet PDF Author: Vicki Hird
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1645020193
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
"This is a lovely little book that could and should have a big impact...Let’s all get rebugging right away!"—Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall Meet the intelligent insects, marvelous minibeasts, and inspirational invertebrates that help shape our planet—and discover how you can help them help us by rebugging your attitude today! Remember when there were bugs on your windshield? Ever wonder where they went? We need to act now if we are to help the insects survive. Robin Wall Kimmerer, David Attenborough, and Elizabeth Kolbert are but a few voices championing the rewilding of our world. Rebugging the Planet explains how we are headed toward “insectageddon” with a rate of insect extinction eight times faster than that of mammals or birds, and gives us crucial information to help all those essential creepy-crawlies flourish once more. Author Vicki Hird passionately demonstrates how insects and invertebrates are the cornerstone of our global ecosystem. They pollinate plants, feed birds, support and defend our food crops, and clean our water systems. They are also beautiful, inventive, and economically invaluable—bees, for example, contribute an estimated $235 to $577 billion to the US economy annually, according to Forbes. Rebugging the Planet shows us small changes we can make to have a big impact on our littlest allies: Learn how to rewild parks, schools, sidewalks, roadsides, and other green spaces. Leave your garden to grow a little wild and plant weedkiller-free, wildlife-friendly plants. Take your kids on a minibeast treasure hunt and learn how to build bug palaces. Make bug-friendly choices with your food and support good farming practices Begin to understand how reducing inequality and poverty will help nature and wildlife too—it’s all connected. So do your part and start rebugging today! The bees, ants, earthworms, butterflies, beetles, grasshoppers, ladybugs, snails, and slugs will thank you—and our planet will thank you too.

Behavioral and neuroscientific analysis of economic decision making in animals

Behavioral and neuroscientific analysis of economic decision making in animals PDF Author: Tobias Kalenscher
Publisher: Frontiers E-books
ISBN: 288919096X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
The experimental analysis of animal behavior has a rich tradition in psychology, behavioral ecology and many other scientific branches dedicated to the study of decision making. However, it has never enjoyed a similar popularity in economics. This has recently changed with the dawn of neuroeconomics – a discipline combining the analytic and experimental tools of psychology and economics with the technologies available in neuroscience to unravel the neurobiological mechanisms underlying economic behavior. Since many of the sophisticated neuroscientific techniques can only be used on animals, neuroeconomists have come up with a large and ever-growing repertoire of animal models to probe economic decision making. Besides the value of using animals as model systems to emulate human economic behavior, the discipline of animal economic decision making exists in its very own right: an abundance of animal species at various evolutionary stages show behavior that complies with many of the predictions of economic theory, whilst, at the same time demonstrating violations of optimal choice models that are reminiscent of similar anomalies found in human behavior. Hence, the analysis of animal choice does not only offer insights into the evolutionary origins of economic decision making, it also testifies that the analysis of animal behavior is a convenient, economical and sound way to test competing economic decision models in optimally controlled experimental environments, to probe their neural implementation and to yield common denominators in choice behavior. In short, economic theory provides more than just an alternative language to describe animal psychology: its combination with biology, psychology and neuroscience gives way to synergy effects that open up new venues for studying economic choice. In this special issue, we would like to gather the latest results from this cross-disciplinary topic, address the overlap and discrepancies in (the neurobiology of) economic decision making found between species and identify the challenges that lie ahead in translating results from species to species, and ultimately to humans. The exclusive focus on non-human animals makes this Research Topic unique and distinct from previous special issues which covered a broader range of matters and subjects in the neurobiological analysis of decision making.

Octopus, Squid, and Cuttlefish

Octopus, Squid, and Cuttlefish PDF Author: Roger Hanlon
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022645956X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
"Cephalopods are often misunderstood creatures. Three biologists set the record straight."—Science News Largely shell-less relatives of clams and snails, the marine mollusks in the class Cephalopoda—Greek for “head-foot”—are colorful creatures of many-armed dexterity, often inky self-defense, and highly evolved cognition. They are capable of learning, of retaining information—and of rapid decision-making to avoid predators and find prey. They have eyes and senses rivaling those of vertebrates like birds and fishes, they morph texture and body shape, and they change color faster than a chameleon. In short, they captivate us. From the long-armed mimic octopus—able to imitate the appearance of swimming flounders and soles—to the aptly named flamboyant cuttlefish, whose undulating waves of color rival the graphic displays of any LCD screen, there are more than seven hundred species of cephalopod. Featuring a selection of species profiles, Octopus, Squid, and Cuttlefish reveals the evolution, anatomy, life history, behaviors, and relationships of these spellbinding animals. Their existence proves that intelligence can develop in very different ways: not only are cephalopods unusually large-brained invertebrates, they also carry two-thirds of their neurons in their arms. A treasure trove of scientific fact and visual explanation, this worldwide illustrated guide to cephalopods offers a comprehensive review of these fascinating and mysterious underwater invertebrates—from the lone hunting of the octopus, to the social squid, and the prismatic skin signaling of the cuttlefish.

The Invertebrate Tree of Life

The Invertebrate Tree of Life PDF Author: Gonzalo Giribet
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691197067
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 608

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Book Description
The most up-to-date book on invertebrates, providing a new framework for understanding their place in the tree of life In The Invertebrate Tree of Life, Gonzalo Giribet and Gregory Edgecombe, leading authorities on invertebrate biology and paleontology, utilize phylogenetics to trace the evolution of animals from their origins in the Proterozoic to today. Phylogenetic relationships between and within the major animal groups are based on the latest molecular analyses, which are increasingly genomic in scale and draw on the soundest methods of tree reconstruction. Giribet and Edgecombe evaluate the evolution of animal organ systems, exploring how current debates about phylogenetic relationships affect the ways in which aspects of invertebrate nervous systems, reproductive biology, and other key features are inferred to have developed. The authors review the systematics, natural history, anatomy, development, and fossil records of all major animal groups, employing seminal historical works and cutting-edge research in evolutionary developmental biology, genomics, and advanced imaging techniques. Overall, they provide a synthetic treatment of all animal phyla and discuss their relationships via an integrative approach to invertebrate systematics, anatomy, paleontology, and genomics. With numerous detailed illustrations and phylogenetic trees, The Invertebrate Tree of Life is a must-have reference for biologists and anyone interested in invertebrates, and will be an ideal text for courses in invertebrate biology. A must-have and up-to-date book on invertebrate biology Ideal as both a textbook and reference Suitable for courses in invertebrate biology Richly illustrated with black-and-white and color images and abundant tree diagrams Written by authorities on invertebrate evolution and phylogeny Factors in the latest understanding of animal genomics and original fossil material

Animals as Biotechnology

Animals as Biotechnology PDF Author: Richard Twine
Publisher: Earthscan
ISBN: 1849776350
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
In Animals as Biotechnology sociologist Richard Twine places the question of human/animal relations at the heart of sustainability and climate change debates. The book is shaped by the emergence of two contradictory trends within our approach to nonhuman animals: the biotechnological turn in animal sciences, which aims to increase the efficiency and profitability of meat and dairy production; and the emerging field of critical animal studies - mostly in the humanities and social sciences - which works to question the nature of our relations with other animals. The first part of the book focuses on ethics, examining critically the dominant paradigms of bioethics and power relations between human and non-human. The second part considers animal biotechnology and political economy, examining commercialisation and regulation. The final part of the book centres on discussions of sustainability, limits and an examination of the prospects for animal ethics if biotechnology becomes part of the dominant agricultural paradigm. Twine concludes by considering whether growing calls to reduce our consumption of meat/dairy products in the face of climate change threats are in fact complicit with an anthropocentric understanding of sustainability and that what is needed is a more fundamental ethical and political questioning of relations and distinctions between humans, animals and nature.

Use of Laboratory Animals in Biomedical and Behavioral Research

Use of Laboratory Animals in Biomedical and Behavioral Research PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309038391
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 113

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Book Description
Scientific experiments using animals have contributed significantly to the improvement of human health. Animal experiments were crucial to the conquest of polio, for example, and they will undoubtedly be one of the keystones in AIDS research. However, some persons believe that the cost to the animals is often high. Authored by a committee of experts from various fields, this book discusses the benefits that have resulted from animal research, the scope of animal research today, the concerns of advocates of animal welfare, and the prospects for finding alternatives to animal use. The authors conclude with specific recommendations for more consistent government action.