This blog is all about brains and behavior — how animal brains generate behavior, how behaviors and neural mechanisms mechanisms develop, and how and why behaviors and their mechanisms evolve. These questions are central to the discipline of neuroethology, a sub-area of neuroscience. The blog is authored by a number of students who are enrolled in an advanced Neuroethology seminar at New College of Florida in Spring 2019.
How do animal brains generate behavior? How and why do behaviors and their underlying neural mechanisms develop and evolve? What is the adaptive value of animal behaviors? These are central questions to neuroethology.
Each blogger will focus on a diverse animal behavior, such as electric fish communication, sensing of the environment through whiskers, behavior-altering parasites, and more! Many blogs will address how neuroethology intersects with societal issues, such as climate change, light and noise pollution, and animal-human interactions. Bloggers will describe this research in an engaging and readable manner that is accessible to a general readership.