Dendrite Experiment

The number of bar presses, per each 30-second trial, was recorded. If the rat seemed to be satiated, it was a good idea to place her back into her home cage where she had accessibility to water (Lab Manual). After 5-10 minutes, the rat could be returned to the operant conditioning chamber, where 3-5 lever presses were reinforced (Lab Manual). After the conditioning phase was completed, the reset button was pressed two times, which turned off the lights and begun the extinction phase. During the extinction phase, lever presses were not reinforced.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this experiment is to encourage discrimination in rat #4, to measure how the rat distinguishes between pressing the lever when a light is on, and when it is off. Discrimination is the tendency for behavior to occur in situations that are very similar to the one in which the behavior was learned, but not in situations that differ from it. Therefore, as the lamp light was on while the rat was learning to press the lever in previous experiments, the tendency for the rat to discriminate when the light is on, or off, will be measured in this experiment.

Humans, as well as other primates, bond with grooming and playing with others. Humans, unlike other primates, interact with a wider variety of their species than most primates. The many human subgroups and cultures all interact with each other across the world, whereas most other primates only interact with those in their social group. The single fact that nearly all primates, including humans, are very social beings in general and prefer to live in social groups, contributes to the multitude of similarities of social behavior.

Animals with a bigger cage and more toys had less neurons in the hippocampus than the control group

We have already discussed how the importance of vasopressin in social behaviors. Central administration of vasopressin facilitates monogamous typical behaviors in male prairie voles through the vasopressin V1a receptors (V1aR) in the brain (Winslow et al., 1993). It would be interesting to compare how vasopressin activity differs between the monogamous and polygamous voles. Turns out it is not the amount of vasopressin but the distribution of V1aRs in the brain which varies considerably between monogamous and promiscuous vole species (Insel et al., 1994). Lastly to emphasize Vasopressin’s role in neural basis of pair bonding, an experiment done by Lim et al (2004) is included.

The goal of the experiment is to determine whether sniffy the rat will associate a flash of light with the tone which is presented with a conditioned stimulus of a tone. It is predicted that sniffy will eventually learn to associate to light with the tone and this will elicit a conditioned response in terms of the shock presented in stage one. There were four stages in the experiment each consisted of five trials over the course of five minutes, the first stage was shown with the first stimulus of a medium tone followed by a second stimulus of a shock on high. The second stage had a first stimulus of a medium light followed by a medium tone. The third stage included only a medium tone and the fourth stage was presented with a medium light.

β-Cat cKO in PV neurons alters social behaviors. ASDs are characterized by social-interaction difficulties. In the social interaction (SIT) of a three-chamber paradigm to estimate the social memory and social novelty, both groups of mice showed no preference for empty chambers during the habituation (not shown). When a mouse is presented with an empty chamber, both β-catf/f and β-cat-PV-cKO mice preferred to interact more with the mouse 1 (M1) rather than the empty chamber (E)

The discovery of inheritability of social behavior traits among non-human primates has important implications for people as it reinforces other research that suggests that such characteristics as sociability and impulsive

Of all the mental duties revealed about the rat during this book, the one that most interested me was direct reciprocity. This was the most intriguing information, because while generalized reciprocity would seem to be a higher functioning thought process, in reality direct reciprocity is far more complex. The animals must learn and understand reciprocal altruism. Not only are the animals required to learn that there is a causal relationship between cooperatively working together and receiving more rewards, there is an entire chain of events that must take place. In order to perform direct reciprocity a rat must be able to tell apart other rats, and keep a mental list. This list consists of all of the specific rats that have helped it in

In a study by Monique Udell at Oregon State University in Corvallis; twenty dogs and twenty wolves were given a box with a treat inside and a lid. The canines each entered a room where a human and the box containing a treat waited. The canines were given a limited amount of time in order to open the box containing the treat. This process was repeated once with no human in the room and once with the human actively engaging with the canine. Previously, in 2003 there was a surge in studying the difference between dogs and wolves. One of these studies was a similar experiment with the same results. The scientists wanted to know why these results had been gotten so they asked a question, “Which canine is better at problem solving, wolves or dogs?”

In biology courses, anatomy is an essential part to conduct, and animals such as frogs, rabbits and rats are often used to understand anatomical contents. Also, there are a variety of experiments that use animals in psychology including social isolation, separation anxiety, classical conditioning and brain studies. Animal testing contributes a lot to the brain development. Science, Medicine, and Animals demonstrates examples which “chlorpromazine, which was developed in the 1950s using animals, and other antipsychotic drugs have eliminated the horrific conditions that used to exist in the wards of mental hospitals where the most severely disturbed patients were once kept” (11). The book also states that “for treating alcoholism, drug abuse and phobias, behavior modification therapy is an effective technique, and the majority of these therapies are partly the result of longitudinal animal research” (11). Mental health becomes more important in the modern society. These research and therapies provide methods to treat these disorders, which students with psychology majors can learn these knowledges and apply them in the professional field. Without animal testing, it’s more difficult to develop scientific courses for students and motivate them to study in scientific fields. Moreover, some people always state that

Social cognition is a complicated process that requires the integration of a wide variety of behaviors, including perception of social signals, reward-seeking, motivation, short-term recognition, and flexible adjustment in social groups. As crucial parts of social cognition, animals, including rodents and primates, have the desire to seek out contact and interaction with conspecifics. This is called social motivation. During this interaction, they need to recognize the behavior of other individuals or the group as a whole, and to respond to social signals appropriately. Social recognition/perception is required for forming long-term attachments, hierarchies, and other complex social strategies critical for survival

Beneficial aim of the animal models of mood disorder is to increase of our understanding of instance of mood disorders. As an example, it is hard to get clear understanding of the neuro biological brain functions of the living human brain. Reasons of these limitations, animal models are appropriate to study to understand mood disorders. However, as Eric J. Nestler mentions in his article, many psychological symptoms cannot determine such as hallucinations, sadness, guilt, and delusions, On the other hand, scientist can approximate the behavioral symptoms in animals which they are abnormal social behavior, working memory, emotion, motivation, and executive function. (Animal models of Neuro-psychiatric Disorders) Moreover, another benefit that

In this journal researchers realized that monkeys placed in isolation for some period were unable to partake in normal social relationships with fellow monkeys after being taken out of isolation. To expand on this observation researchers wanted to see how monkey’s social relationships and behaviors would be affected when administered multiple psychoactive drugs. In this study, the dependent variables were the 3 types of drugs (hallucinogen, stimulant, and tranquilizer), the independent variable was the nonverbal communication and socialization that took place with the drugged monkeys, and the controlled variable was a monkey that was not on any drugs. Since they were testing both the group interactions and nonverbal communications there were 2 main testing areas. The group testing took place

In this study researchers wanted to find out how rats social skills were affected when exposed less to their mother and liter mates at a young age. Researchers expected to find that the way the rats are raised preweaning will affect the adult’s gregariousness rather than what they need or want at that time in adulthood. To test this theory, they bred 76 rats and exposed them to 6 total different social environments. The independent variables in this experiment were the multiple social environments the rats were testing in which consisted of, separation daily from their mother and liter mates and isolation at weaning, separation from just their mother and isolation at weaning, constantly with their mother and liter mates and isolation at weaning,