Neuroethology

We examine animals that are “specialists” in a particular type of behavior. The pedagogical premise is that general insights into the neuronal organization of behavior can be gained by examining neural solutions that animals have evolved to solve problems encountered in their environmental niche. The idea that an ideal animal exists for studying the neural of specific behaviors is based on Krogh's principle. Krogh's principle states that "for such a large number of problems there will be some animal of choice, or a few such animals, on which it can be most conveniently studied." This concept is central to those disciplines of biology that rely on the comparative method such as neuroethology. Central to the dogma of this course, therefore, is the idea that nervous systems are best understood in the context of the problems they have evolved to solve (“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”).​