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Vertebrates share ancient neural circuitry for complex socialbehaviors, biologists find by efwegbe erergeer
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Vertebrates share ancient neural circuitry for complex socialbehaviors, biologists find by EFWEGBE ERERGEER
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| Article Posted: 07/13/2013 |
| Article Views: 53 |
| Articles Written: 1575 - MORE ARTICLES FROM THIS AUTHOR |
| Word Count: 390 |
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Vertebrates share ancient neural circuitry for complex socialbehaviors, biologists find |
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"There is an ancient circuitry that appears to be involved insocial behavior across all vertebrates," said Hans Hofmann,associate professor of integrative biology. "On a basic level,this tells us something about where we came from. A lot of theneural circuits that our brain uses for social behavior areactually quite old." Hofmann and graduate student Lauren O'Connell published theirresearch in this week's Science . The biologists analyzed 12 regions of the brain responsible forsocial behavior and decision-making in 88 species of vertebratesincluding birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and fish.
They specifically looked at gene activity in two neural networks,one responsible for evaluating the relative importance of stimuli(the mesolimbic reward system), and one responsible for socialbehavior (the social behavior network). The former is important indrug addiction and romantic love, which manifests in the brainsurprisingly like drug addiction. "In these key brain regions, we found remarkable conservationof gene activity across species," said Hofmann. Despite the discovery of such consistency in gene activity, it'seasy to see that vertebrates have evolved a large diversity ofbehaviors during the past 450 million years.
That diversity can be partly explained, said Hofmann, as smallvariations on a theme. The basic neural circuits evolved long ago,providing a genetic and molecular framework for the evolution ofnew behavior. Small tweaks over time in those neural circuits thengive rise to new behavior. Monogamy, for example, has evolved multiple times independently invarious vertebrate species. Monogamous behavior can be moreadvantageous for reproduction and survival under certainenvironmental conditions, and the research suggests that theevolution of this behavior is probably the result of small tweaksin a conserved neural network rather than evolving an entirely newone.
"Vertebrate brains are incredibly diverse, but we are findingthe commonalities, even at the level of gene activity," saidHofmann. "Now we have a framework with which we can askwhether there are molecular universals associated with socialbehaviors." Hofmann described "molecular universals" as common genesand molecules shared across species that form the bases ofbehavior, and he is on the hunt for them. This research highlightsthe areas of the vertebrate brain where he can now look formolecular universals in these shared neural circuits. I am a professional writer from Animal Extract, which contains a great deal of information about ac inverter drives , phoenix welding supply, welcome to visit!
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