Neuroethology Of The Colonial Mind Ecological And Evolutionary Context Of Social Brains

Animal groups often display striking collective organization, which relies on social interactions. These interactions require neural substrates supporting the exchange of information among individuals and the processing of this information. The social brain hypothesis, suggested from neuroanatomical findings in primates, posits that increasing levels of sociality involve a higher investment in neural tissue to cope with social information. However, distributed cognition and swarm intelligence might alleviate the cognitive load on the individuals, and potentially reduce their neural requirements. Research on social insects, which are an exemplar of collective action, has so far produced mixed results. Individual cognition and collective action have received a lot of attention, and much progress has been done in each of those fields; however, much less is understood about how the two interact. Our goal is to aggregate theoretical and experimental research exploring the links between the complexity of individual and collective behaviors. Experimental research testing the social brain hypothesis showed little support for a general explanation across the animal kingdom. The relationship between the cognitive abilities of animals and their social interactions are much more complex than previously thought, and tackling this problem requires a better knowledge of the fundamental mechanisms underpinning socio-cognitive tasks. What is the information used by the animals during social interactions? How much information is necessary? How many neurons and which neural circuits are required for processing this information? What neural connections are important? Do these social interactions involve memory formation? How do the cognitive requirements and neural circuits vary between group members? Answering these questions will bring considerable insights into the cognitive complexity involved for social and collective behaviors. It will also advance our understanding of inter-individual cognitive variability and division of labor in most socially advanced species. This Research Topic will be a unique forum for researchers from different fields (neurogenetics, neuro-ethology, evolutionary ecology, cognitive ecology, collective animal behavior, computational modeling) working on different species to present up to date advances on the physiological correlates of social behavior and delineate future directions for the field of social neuroethology. We welcome contributions on any aspect of the cognitive requirements of social and collective behaviors, from molecular, cellular, and circuit level approaches to how individuals contribute to group action at the behavioral level. Specific areas of interest include, but are not limited to, studies on the neural underpinnings of division of labor, neuromodulation or neurogenetics of social behaviors, the neural circuits and neuroanatomical basis of group action, and how social signals affect learning and behavior. We encourage submissions that present original research and review evidence or compare data from multiple species. We hope to include work from different disciplines and on a wide range of species, including model, non-model, and wild animals, with the aim of gaining insight into the patterns of neural investment in individual cognition

In the mid-20th century, integrative efforts began concerning the brain and its social and humanistic functions. These efforts were led by Paul D. MacLean's integrative research and thought. As the century ended, however, such efforts were lost in the surge of new effort in brain and genome research. Nobel Prizes were awarded on biochemical and cellular findings relevant to psychiatry. Findings on these levels seemed to provide ultimate answers. By contrast, Cory, Gardner, and their contributors provide a more comprehensive view by extending MacLean's findings and integrative theory. Supported by new findings and extended by critical analyses of current work, the collection provides foundations for more integrative efforts that the editors and contributors believe will prevail increasingly in coming decades. Looked at from another vantage point, therapeutic, social, economic, and politial sciences have proceeded wtihout operating theories congruent with, or based on, brain functions. Across-species perspectives have been lacking. This collection redresses this problem and leads the way toward more comprehensive 21st century research on the one hand, and practical applications on the other. Multiple approaches extend from modeling efforts to across-species comparisons, to the basic science of psychiatry to theoretical explanations of political and economic systems. But most important, these essays abolish the Berlin wall that currently separates the brain from its social functions. A major guide for scholars, students, and researchers involved in the neurobehavioral sciences, for psychologists, psychiatrists, and others involved with human clinical sciences, and for social scientists concerned with the impact of the nervous system and its function.

This book examines why humans have big brains, what big brains enable us to do, and how specialized brains are associated with eusociality in animals. It explores why brains expanded so slowly, and then why they stopped growing. This book whittles down the theories on brain size evolution to a few that represent testable hypotheses to identify logical and practical explanations for the phenomenon. At the core of this book is data derived from original, previously unpublished research on brain size in a number of social mammals. This data supports the idea that evolution of the brain in humans is the result of social interaction. This book also traces the products of the social brain: ideology, religion, urban life, housing, and learning and adapting to dense complex social interactions. It uniquely compares brain evolution in social animals across the animal kingdom, and examines the nature of the human brain and its evolution within the social and historical context of complex human social structures.

The main topic of the book is a reconstruction of the evolution of nervous systems and brains as well as of mental-cognitive abilities, in short “intelligence” from simplest organisms to humans. It investigates to which extent the two are correlated. One central topic is the alleged uniqueness of the human brain and human intelligence and mind. It is discussed which neural features make certain animals and humans intelligent and creative: Is it absolute or relative brain size or the size of “intelligence centers” inside the brains, the number of nerve cells inside the brain in total or in such “intelligence centers” decisive for the degree of intelligence, of mind and eventually consciousness? And which are the driving forces behind these processes? Finally, it is asked what all this means for the classical problem of mind-brain relationship and for a naturalistic theory of mind.

This handbook lays out the science behind how animals think, remember, create, calculate, and remember. It provides concise overviews on major areas of study such as animal communication and language, memory and recall, social cognition, social learning and teaching, numerical and quantitative abilities, as well as innovation and problem solving. The chapters also explore more nuanced topics in greater detail, showing how the research was conducted and how it can be used for further study. The authors range from academics working in renowned university departments to those from research institutions and practitioners in zoos. The volume encompasses a wide variety of species, ensuring the breadth of the field is explored.

A comprehensive, multi-author treatise on the social insects of the world, with some auxiliary attention to such adjacent topics as subsocial insects and social arachnids. The work is to serve as a very convenient, yet authoritative reference work on the biology and systematics of social insects of the world. This is a project of the International Union for the Study of Social Insects (IUSSI), the worldwide organizing body for the scientific study of social insects.

This volume brings together leading experts in comparative and evolutionary psychology. Top scholars summarize the histories and possible futures of their disciplines, and the contribution of each to illuminating the evolutionary forces that give rise to unique abilities in distantly and closely related species.

Although there is extensive literature in the field of behavioral ecology that attempts to explain foraging of individuals, social foraging--the ways in which animals search and compete for food in groups--has been relatively neglected. This book redresses that situation by providing both a synthesis of the existing literature and a new theory of social foraging. Giraldeau and Caraco develop models informed by game theory that offer a new framework for analysis. Social Foraging Theory contains the most comprehensive theoretical approach to its subject, coupled with quantitative methods that will underpin future work in the field. The new models and approaches that are outlined here will encourage new research directions and applications. To date, the analysis of social foraging has lacked unifying themes, clear recognition of the problems inherent in the study of social foraging, and consistent interaction between theory and experiments. This book identifies social foraging as an economic interaction between the actions of individuals and those of other foragers. This interdependence raises complex questions about the size of foraging groups, the diversity of resources used, and the propensity of group members to exploit each other or forage cooperatively. The models developed in the book will allow researchers to test their own approaches and predictions. Many years in development, Social Foraging Theory will interest researchers and graduate students in such areas as behavioral ecology, population ecology, evolutionary biology, and wildlife management.

This work contains both contemporary research findings and historical experimental evidence. It includes the topic animal awareness, and there is requisite background material on genetics and other basic molecular topics.

The role of parents in shaping the characters of their children, the causes of violence and crime, and the roots of personal unhappiness are central to humanity. Like so many fundamental questions about human existence, these issues all relate to behavioural development. In this lucid and accessible book, eminent biologist Professor Sir Patrick Bateson suggests that the nature/nurture dichotomy we often use to think about questions of development in both humans and animals is misleading. Instead, he argues that we should pay attention to whole systems, rather than to simple causes, when trying to understand the complexity of development. In his wide-ranging approach Bateson discusses why so much behaviour appears to be well-designed. He explores issues such as ‘imprinting’ and its importance to the attachment of offspring to their parents; the mutual benefits that characterise communication between parent and offspring; the importance of play in learning how to choose and control the optimal conditions in which to thrive; and the vital function of adaptability in the interplay between development and evolution. Bateson disputes the idea that a simple link can be found between genetics and behaviour. What an individual human or animal does in its life depends on the reciprocal nature of its relationships with the world about it. This knowledge also points to ways in which an animal’s own behaviour can provide the variation that influences the subsequent course of evolution. This has relevance not only for our scientific approaches to the systems of development and evolution, but also on how humans change institutional rules that have become dysfunctional, or design public health measures when mismatches occur between themselves and their environments. It affects how we think about ourselves and our own capacity for change.