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29 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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What are the two broad classes of hormone secretions, and how do they function?
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-Protein hormones: big molecules, insoluble in cell membranes because they are too big to get in. These will need to find their target on the outside of a cell with a receptor protein.
-cAMP release (2nd messenger) -Steroid hormones: little molecules, go right through the cell membrane because they are lipids. Acts at the nucleus level of the cell. -Does not require a 2nd messenger, and acts directly on gene expression. |
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What is the main effect of the hypothalamus on the reproductive system?
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Hypothalamus (2 parts)
-The part we care about produces “releasing hormones” -Makes a whole lot of these -Controls other glands via the isthmus -Makes Gn (Gonadotrophin) RH, shoots them down the isthmus -capillary bed ->isthmus->capillary bed->pituitary |
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What is the effect of the pituitary on the reproductive system?
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Pituitary: “Release your gonadotrophins!”
-Gonadotrophins: named for Females. Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) and Luteinizing Hormone (LH) -Released to second capillary bedheartbody -Hormones find receptor by travelling through the bloodstream |
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What is the endocrine-related role of the follicle and the corpus luteum in the reproductive system?
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Follicle and Corpus Luteum (of Females): where the target receptors are
-Guys’ targets are the interstitial cells and Sertoli cells |
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What are the two types of effects of steroids?
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-Steroids (like cholesterol)—estrogen, progesterone, or testosterone
-Have organizational effects: permanent, occur during development. -Early wave of testosterone causes gonads and sets your brain up to be male. (But if the mom takes some stuff and screws up the testosterone... transgender?) -3 waves of testosterone -And activational effects (transient): -primarily behavioral -male combat -obvious female cycle (obvious feedback where the product [progesterone/estrogen] returns to the hypothalamus) |
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What is the McClintock Effect?
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-the McClintock effect: women synchronize cycles, mediated through subconscious smell! This resets the monthly cycle, which is an environmental effect!
-Evolutionarily, synchronizing cycles makes it harder for male primates to monopolize, and females can exercise more choice in mates. WOOT! -Absence of testosterone at 8 weeks + absence of 3rd wave = female |
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What are the 5 ways of studying the genetics of behavior?
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-Hybrid Studies
-Control the environment -See if certain traits respond to selection -Single gene knockout experiments -Looking at genetic disorders |
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What is a hybrid study? Give an example of one.
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strictly, this means 2 species. But we are using a looser criteria of 2 “types.” The term “types” focuses on traits
-Physiological traits can affect behavior -Morphology is the most commonly studied trait -Example of Hybrid studies: Rothenbuehler’s Bees -Occasionally, a larva will be attacked by a predaceous fungus, and it can spread throughout the hive -Some bees were “clean,” and clean bees did two behaviors: they uncapped the chamber of an infected larva and removed the larva. -Other bees were the “Van Scoy” bees (he hated that guy, I guess), which just leave the infected larva there. -His question: what is the basis for the difference between these bees? Is it inherited? Environmental? -Answer: Hybridize the types of bees together! (Clean x Van Scoy) -Findings: they all became Van Scoy bees! -Crosses F1 with themselves -Get’s the magical 9:3:3:1 ratio, and says F1 is all heterozygous! -Richardson can’t remember exactly how he named the alleles, so we are going with this: -Uncap, remove = recessive -Dirty = dominant |
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Give an example of controlling the environment to study behavioral genetics.
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-Example: Steve Arnold and his garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtilas).
-Coastal snakes (slug eaters) vs. inland snakes (non-slug, worm eaters) -Brings them back to the lab and lets them reproduce, so that after a few generations there is absolutely no chance of parental teaching. -Offers alternative foods, and if it is genetic they will stick either slug or non-slug, which they do. (Interest measured by tongue flicks!!!) -Arnold concludes that this food choice is a genetic thing. -This was an example of keeping an environment constant, but you could also vary the environment... -Identical twin studies -Sometimes name kids and dogs the same things, have very similar lives (drunk firemen married to Donnas). |
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Give an example of seeing if certain traits respond to selection.
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-Heritability can really be measured here
-Geotaxis in flies: affinity for being on the ground -Maze running: get a normal distribution of maze speeds among rats/mice -Francis Galton: inventor of correlation statistics, remember? -“Galton’s line” = 45% slope, heritability of 1 -A fast parent will have a fast kid, etc. |
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What are the two main venues of proximal behavioral explanations?
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-Includes equipment/chemicals
-Primary proximal: immediate gene effects and the neuro-endocrine -Neuro (introductory): brain stuff -Endocrine (literally “into blood/hemolymph”): glands, epidermal derivatives. A gland is epithelial tissue (cuboidal or columnar). An endocrine gland will empty into the blood. The alternative to this is the ducted glands (exocrine) which empty into a surface, not the bloodstream (like salivary glands). -Endocrine glands produce hormones which travel through the bloodstream to get to their target |
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What are the major parts of the human endocrine system?
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1.) Hypothalamusthe master gland complex: “hypothalamic hypophyseel complex”
2.) Thyroid parathyroids on the outside of the thyroid are absolutely vital (variable number, anywhere from 2-8)! 3.) Pancreas little wormy thing 4.) Adrenal Glands 2, at the same level as the pancreas, near the kidneys -The adrenal cortex -The adrenal medulla 5.) Testes or Ovaries (gonads) |
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Who was Descartes, and what is Cartesian science?
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(the ultimate mechanist): the animal is a machine. You can take apart an animal and put it back together, and it would work (reductionism). Descartes didn’t worry about animal pain, or any little nuances of emotion.
-Cartesian science: an animal is the sum of its parts -Biomedical: “we can do anything to an animal if we learn something that will be useful to humans.” |
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What are the basics of the nature vs. nurture debate?
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-General:
-Nature is a reductionist idea, because it is based upon genetics. -Nurture is more of a vitalism idea, because it is based upon the environment’s “vital forces.” -In the 70’s, went from a dichotomy to a “we’re both right” opinion -Today, we are back to the specifics of which is nurture and which is nature. |
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What are the benefits and limitations of a reductionist view of brain function?
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-Historically, the reductionist view has been very important in brain science, because we didn’t know anything! So we just associated parts with functions until pretty soon we had the animal all figured out.
-This reduction of the brain’s parts and functions works for a while, but it has limited usefulness. It is useful for structure and size, which helps us understand function. In animal behavior, this works pretty well. -The limits of reductionism appear when we get to the human brain, of course. -Language areas of the brain were studied using only males of the dominant race at the time. When they looked at other people, they realized the area was different than in their original model. So gender difference is a huge problem in the reductionist model! -Males have more discrete function than females -When females solve math problems, they use many more parts of the brain rather than one specific area. Females have more parts of the brain needed for tasks. -Females are less likely to lose language when they have a stroke! (which explains why Richardson still talks all day long) -“Fight or flight” isn’t really present in females. It’s more of a “cooperate and nurture” response. Get a group together and try to be defended by others. -Gender differences are known in humans, but we are just now noticing that male and female animals are different as well! |
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Give a general outline of the evolution of the brain from the ancestral condition.
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-Invertebrate (worm-like, segmented)
-Metamerism (repeating organization) -This is the ancestral condition, having identical segments with just a little bit of nervous tissue in the center of each segment (more than one neuron) -Recall that a neuron has incoming and outgoing processes. -Ganglion: a collection of cell bodies outside of a central nervous system. This is the earliest form of the brain. -These invertebrates give rise to cephalization and centralization -Cephalization: concentrating nervous tissue in a head region, main sensory regions in this area as well. |
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What are ontogony and phylogeny, and what is Haeckel's biogenic law?
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-Both can be thought of as “development.”
-Ontogeny: Individual development -Phylogeny: Evolutionary development -Haeckel – Biogenic Law (remember, there are no laws in biology!) -Deeply flawed name, for one thing. -“Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.”individual development is a window into the evolution of an organism. -Phylogeny: Fish Reptile Bird -Ontogeny: Gill slits Amniotic egg Skin derivatives -Haeckel’s faked drawings -His ideas suggest that we would act like a fish early in behavior, then move up the scale. Which is stupid. |
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Who are the "big three" of behavior?
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-Tinbergen, VonFrisch, and Lorenz: first nobel prize in medicine for behavioral work.
-Tinbergen: Incredibly patient, tortured wasps. Discovered wasps use landmarks to find things. Did experiments where he moved the landmarks (like a flower pot or something), and discovered they could still locate them even after the move. -VonFrisch: The bee-dancing guy. The waggle has meaning to other bees, and this guy could translate what they were communicating to the others. He could watch a bee and tell you the direction and distance to the nectar source! That’s pretty amazing, actually. -Lorenz: Greylag geese (chapter 3), imprinting. Got courted by all his geese because they thought his image was the image of their future mate, since in nature they usually imprint on their mother, a female goose. -In the 1940’s, it was STILL pretty popular to anthropomorphize. |
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Who was Romanes, and what did he contribute?
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-Evolution legacy: evolutionary hierarchy
-Your lower organisms express what we would consider lower behaviors such as “surprise & fear, sexual feelings, pugnacity, industry, and curiosity.” -Obviously, come on, they are not sensing emotions. This is full of anthropocentrism. -Contributed to one kind of behavioral development (Chapter 3) |
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Darwin's legacy to animal behavior was what, and what were its parts?
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-His legacy to animal behavior were his tenets of evolution by natural selection:
-More organisms are born than can survive -Survival traits are inherited -Surviving traits increase in the population -He added predictive power to natural science. Before his time, science was supposed to reflect the glory of the maker |
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What are reductionism and vitalism?
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-Reductionism vs. Vitalism (emergence/essentialism)
-Reductionism: everything in science can be reduced to the sum of its parts. By studying the parts, we can understand the whole. -Vitalism: There is always something missing. The sum is greater than the parts. There is some emergent property that cannot be measured when they are apart... some “vital force.” (Margulis) |
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What is the main principle of the writings of Malthus?
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-More organisms are born than can survive. Survival is based on heritable traits. In the next generation, more of these carriers will survive than non-carriers. Resources grow linearly, whereas population grows exponentially.
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What is artificial selection?
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-Artificial selection: humans are the agent of selection (we don’t like green cows, so we don’t let them have babies. Bam! No more green cows!) Dog breeding is artificial selection, agriculture is artificial selection...
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What was "natural theology?"
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-When Chaz was born, the prevalent idea was that the Earth was about 6,000 years old (biblically determined from the “begets”).
-When he went on the Beagle, the prevalent method of studying the world was called “Natural Theology.” -Natural Theology: nature reflects the “glory of the watchmaker.” Everything we study about the natural world reflects the glory of the maker (William Paley). -This model is NOT a theory, because it makes absolutely no predictions (except “hey, I’m going to find glorious stuff”). |
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What were Cuvier's discarded ideas?
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-Claimed he knew everything in 10,000 books, what a dick
-Super good with details. -“Correlation of Parts”: body = “perfect machine,” so it can never change. No adaptation. You change, you die. |
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What were LaMarck's discarded ideas?
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-Variation is good! Inheritance of acquired characteristics blah blah blah
-Mechanism: migrating change particles are what pass your changes on to your kids, according to LaMarck -Waylaid Russian science because they loved him and yadda yadda -Harmful because the USSR refused to give up his ideas until fairly recently for some reason -Championed by Lysenko the asshole, people were killed for trying to do other science, etc. -When Lysenko died, they were decades behind the rest of the world, had to learn all the genetics |
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What were Aristotle & Plato's discarded ideas?
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-Anti-variation: variation was “bad,” and varied types were “less perfect,” since they were supposed to resemble the Eidos.
-Anti-change: no climbing the Ladder of Being! You can’t become better or more perfect no matter what. |
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Where does the history of human behavior begin? What were early humans doing, and why?
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-the caves of France: cave paintings used for communication of hunting methods- a “how-to guide” which made basic observations about the natural history of the prey: migrations, food choices, etc.
-Sharing observations increased their success, allowing them to pass on genes, etc. -Hunting is highly social. -Around 15,000 years ago (there were people here in North America already, too, and they were communicating in much the same way, but sans caves). -Subsistence science (how they lived) -After a few thousand years, human societies developed hierarchies, ways of controlling resources such as time and energy. High on the hierarchy: taxonomy. |
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What are the different levels of learners and of science?
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-Individual (learners)
-Level 1: concrete information (facts, details) -to be regurgitated -Level 2: synthetic information (theory-based) -Science -Level 1: concrete sciences (more static) - “cementheads” -basic physics (math-based) -taxonomy (the naming stuff thing) -anatomy -physiology -Level 2: synthetic sciences (theoretical) -evolution (theory of evolution by natural selection) -behavior: early stuff is “proximate,” detailing the mechanics of “how?” Later stuff is more synthetic, “ultimate,” considering the theories of “why?” |
