Research has revealed that fetuses can learn from events in their environment. The most convincing evidence for fetal learning is habituation to vibroacoustic stimulation (VAS) in human fetuses and classical conditioning in rat fetuses. However, these two research areas have been independent of each other. There have been few attempts at classical…

Two adjacent groups of midbrain dopaminergic neurons, A9 (substantia nigra pars compacta) and A10 (ventral tegmental area), have distinct projections and exhibit differential vulnerability in Parkinson's disease. Little is known about transcription factors that influence midbrain dopaminergic subgroup phenotypes or their potential role in disease.…

In this article, the author shares how the two service dogs from Canine Assistants helped her realize her goal for her seven-year-old identical twin boys with cerebral palsy to be safer and independent. Connor's dog, Nadia, is a Black Labrador/ Golden Retriever mix. Chase's dog, Oakley, is a Standard Poodle/Golden Retriever mix. Nadia pushes…

Establishing appropriate relations between the basic and applied areas of behavior analysis has been of long and persistent interest to the author. In this article, the author illustrates that there is a direct relation between how hard an organism will work for access to an object or activity, as indexed by the largest ratio completed under a…

The Y chromosome is of great interest to students and can be used to teach about many important biological concepts in addition to sex determination. This paper discusses mutation, recombination, mammalian sex determination, sex determination in general, and the evolution of sex determination in mammals. It includes a student activity that…

Humans discount larger delayed rewards less steeply than smaller rewards, whereas no such magnitude effect has been observed in rats (and pigeons). It remains possible that rats' discounting is sensitive to differences in the quality of the delayed reinforcer even though it is not sensitive to amount. To evaluate this possibility, Experiment 1…

The goal of this series of experiments was to develop an operant choice procedure to examine rapidly the punishing effects of intravenous drugs in rats. First, the cardiovascular effects of experimenter-administered intravenous histamine, a known aversive drug, were assessed to determine a biologically active dose range. Next, rats responded on…

Infants are sensitive to biological motion, but do they recognize it as animate? As a first step towards answering this question, two experiments investigated whether 6-month-olds selectively attribute goals to shapes moving like animals. We habituated infants to a square moving towards one of two targets. When target locations were switched,…

Stanley Fish wrote a column for the "New York Times" entitled "Will the Humanities Save US?" Here, Fish asserted that the humanities can't save humans, and in fact they don't really "do" anything, other than give pleasure to "those who enjoy them." This sustained shrug elicited a blast of energetic and…

In a discussion about architecture, the author's students learned that architects must consider their client's needs when designing a home. To complement their study of bird migration in science class, the author decided to ask students to "think like a bird" in order to design wooden birdhouses that they could take home and actually use. This…

The zoo is a favorite field trip destination for young students. This lesson was created for use before their excursion to increase their awareness of camouflage as a pattern design in animals. In this article, the author describes how her students made an art project on camouflage. (Contains 1 online resource.)

In a previous study, Adachi, Kuwahata, Fujita, Tomonaga & Matsuzawa demonstrated that infant Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) form cross-modal representations of conspecifics but not of humans. However, because the subjects in the experiment were raised in a large social group and had considerably less exposure to humans than to…

Reactivation can destabilize previously consolidated memories, rendering them vulnerable to disruption and necessitating a process of reconsolidation in order for them to be maintained. This process of destabilization and reconsolidation has commonly been cited as a means by which established memories can be updated or modified. However, little…

The striatum plays a major role in both motor control and learning and memory, including executive function and "behavioral flexibility." Lesion, temporary inactivation, and infusion of an N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA)-receptor antagonist into the dorsomedial striatum (dmSTR) impair reversal learning in adult rats. Systemic administration of MK-801…

Why does the brain contain more than one memory system? Genetic algorithms can play a role in elucidating this question. Here, model animals were constructed containing a dorsal striatal layer that controlled actions, and a ventral striatal layer that controlled a dopaminergic learning signal. Both layers could gain access to three modeled memory…