Neuroethology
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| - | '''Feature detection''' is a process by which the nervous system sorts or filters complex natural stimuli in order to extract behaviorally relevant cues that have a high probability of being associated with important objects or organisms in their environment, as opposed to irrelevant background or noise. | ||
| - | ''Feature detectors'' are individual neurons—or groups of neurons—in the brain which code for perceptually significant stimuli. Early in the sensory pathway feature detectors tend to have simple properties; later they become more and more complex as the features to which they respond become more and more specific. | + | '''Neuroethology''' is the evolutionary and comparative approach to the study of animal behavior and its underlying mechanistic control by the nervous system. This interdisciplinary branch of [[behavioral neuroscience]] endeavors to understand how the central nervous system translates biologically relevant stimuli into natural behavior. For example, many bats are capable of [[Animal Echolocation|echolocation]] which is used for prey capture and navigation. The auditory system of bats is often cited as an example for how acoustic properties of sounds can be converted into a sensory map of behaviorally relevant features of sounds. Neuroethologists hope to uncover general principles of the nervous system from the study of animals with exaggerated or specialized behaviors. |
| - | For example, simple cells in the visual cortex of the domestic cat (''[[Felis catus]]''), respond to edges—a feature which is more likely to occur in objects and organisms in the environment. By contrast, the background of a natural visual environment tends to be noisy—emphasizing high spatial frequencies but lacking in extended edges. Responding selectively to an extended edge—either a bright line on a dark background, or the reverse—highlights objects that are near or very large. Edge detectors are useful to a cat, because edges do not occur often in the background "noise" of the visual environment, which is of little consequence to the animal. | + | As its name implies, neuroethology is a multidisciplinary field composed of [[neurobiology]] (the study of the nervous system) and [[ethology]] (the study of animal behavior in natural conditions). A central theme of the field of neuroethology, delineating it from other branches of neuroscience, is this focus on natural behavior, which may be thought of as those behaviors generated through means of [[natural selection]] (i.e. finding mates, navigation, locomotion, predator avoidance) rather than behaviors in disease states, or behavioral tasks that are particular to the laboratory. |
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| - | == See also == | + | |
| - | *[[Neuroethology]] | + | |
| - | *[[Pattern recognition (psychology)]] | + | |
| - | *[[Vision in toads]] | + | |
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Neuroethology is the evolutionary and comparative approach to the study of animal behavior and its underlying mechanistic control by the nervous system. This interdisciplinary branch of behavioral neuroscience endeavors to understand how the central nervous system translates biologically relevant stimuli into natural behavior. For example, many bats are capable of echolocation which is used for prey capture and navigation. The auditory system of bats is often cited as an example for how acoustic properties of sounds can be converted into a sensory map of behaviorally relevant features of sounds. Neuroethologists hope to uncover general principles of the nervous system from the study of animals with exaggerated or specialized behaviors.
As its name implies, neuroethology is a multidisciplinary field composed of neurobiology (the study of the nervous system) and ethology (the study of animal behavior in natural conditions). A central theme of the field of neuroethology, delineating it from other branches of neuroscience, is this focus on natural behavior, which may be thought of as those behaviors generated through means of natural selection (i.e. finding mates, navigation, locomotion, predator avoidance) rather than behaviors in disease states, or behavioral tasks that are particular to the laboratory.
