Behavioral Neurobiology

Hi there, I have been obsessed with Neuroethology for quite some time now. I have been working on a project regarding protein feeding behavior in mated female Drosophila, and am tentatively going to work on a project that deals with escape behavior in Drosophila larvae. I realised it was time I did my basics well, and cover some ground with the famed Behavioral Neurobiology - An Integrated Approach by Dr. Gunther Zupanc. I have no idea what I am in for, but I hope the series of notes I will keep on adding here is of help to me and to someone else as well, someday.

An Overview of Neuroethology and the topics covered here

As far as behavior is concerned, it primarily is a response that an animal comes up with as a result of some stimulus. Neurothologists look at this phenomenon somewhat mechanistically - with an aim to unromanticise (?) it, trying to understand how eactly the central nervous system controls an animal’s response to their environment. We are supposed to concern ourselves with rather simple behaviours - sadly, the conceptual, and the technical difficulties one would have to undergo to deal with something more complex, is quite huge. ...

Neural Mechanisms of Behavior

Neural Mechanisms of Behavior Now that we have established the foundation of neuroethology, let’s dive deeper into the neural mechanisms that control behavior. The Neural Basis of Behavior Every behavior—whether as simple as a reflex or as complex as decision-making—arises from neuronal circuits. Neuroethologists investigate: Sensory Processing – How animals perceive stimuli. Neural Integration – How sensory information is processed and transformed into a response. Motor Output – How the nervous system generates movement. These steps define an input-processing-output framework: ...