TY - JOUR
T1 - A mobility gradient in the organization of vertebrate movement
T2 - The perception of movement through symbolic language
AU - Golani, Ilan
PY - 1992/6
Y1 - 1992/6
N2 - Ordinary language can prevent us from seeing the organization of whole-animal movement. This may be why the search for behavioral homologies has not been as fruitful as the founders of ethology had hoped. The Eshkol-Wachman (EW) movement notational system can reveal shared movement patterns that are undetectable in the kinds of informal verbal descriptions of the same behaviors that are in current use. Rules of organization that are common to locomotor development, agonistic and exploratory behavior, scent marking, play, and dopaminergic drug-induced stereotypies in a variety of vertebrates suggest that behavior progresses along a "mobility gradient" from immobility to increasing complexity and unpredictability. A progression in the opposite direction, with decreasing spatial complexity and increased stereotypy, occurs under the influence of the nonselective dopaminergic drugs apomorphine and amphetamine and partly also the selective dopamine agonist quinpirole. The behaviors associated with the mobility gradient appear to be mediated by a family of basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuits and their descending output stations. Because the small number of rules underlying the mobility gradient account for a large variety of behaviors, they may be related to the specific functional demands on these neurological systems. The EW system and the mobility gradient model should prove useful to ethologists and neurobiologists.
AB - Ordinary language can prevent us from seeing the organization of whole-animal movement. This may be why the search for behavioral homologies has not been as fruitful as the founders of ethology had hoped. The Eshkol-Wachman (EW) movement notational system can reveal shared movement patterns that are undetectable in the kinds of informal verbal descriptions of the same behaviors that are in current use. Rules of organization that are common to locomotor development, agonistic and exploratory behavior, scent marking, play, and dopaminergic drug-induced stereotypies in a variety of vertebrates suggest that behavior progresses along a "mobility gradient" from immobility to increasing complexity and unpredictability. A progression in the opposite direction, with decreasing spatial complexity and increased stereotypy, occurs under the influence of the nonselective dopaminergic drugs apomorphine and amphetamine and partly also the selective dopamine agonist quinpirole. The behaviors associated with the mobility gradient appear to be mediated by a family of basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuits and their descending output stations. Because the small number of rules underlying the mobility gradient account for a large variety of behaviors, they may be related to the specific functional demands on these neurological systems. The EW system and the mobility gradient model should prove useful to ethologists and neurobiologists.
KW - Amphetamine
KW - Apomorphine
KW - Drug-induced stereotypies
KW - Exploratory behavior
KW - Gestalt perception
KW - Language
KW - Motor development
KW - Movement notation
KW - Play
KW - Quinpirole
KW - Ritualized fighting
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0001356407&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/s0140525x00068539
DO - 10.1017/s0140525x00068539
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AN - SCOPUS:0001356407
SN - 0140-525X
VL - 15
SP - 249
EP - 308
JO - Behavioral and Brain Sciences
JF - Behavioral and Brain Sciences
IS - 2
ER -