How the Vertebrate Brain Regulates Behavior by Donald Pfaff

Author:Donald Pfaff [Pfaff, Donald]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2017-05-21T16:00:00+00:00

4

GENES REGULATING BEHAVIOR

Problem: My field was faced with questions about the reliability of studies using gene manipulation. Could we come up with a novel, reliable set of findings for a complete, normal mammalian behavior? How do genes regulate the reproductive behavior that we analyzed at the neuroanatomical, neurophysiological, and transcriptional levels in Chapters 1, 2, and 3? From genetics to physiology to behavior.

Up to this point in our effort to show how a mammalian behavior is produced, I had spelled out the neuroanatomy of estrogen-binding neurons and the neurophysiology of the neural circuit that produces lordosis behavior. Because these estrogen-binding neurons serve estrogen-regulated transcription (Chapter 3), I now could use that family of facts to explore directly the impact of specific genes on reproductive behavior. That is, my field developed into applied genomics: a crescendo of neurobiological accomplishment with respect to reproductive (social) behavior as it subsumed genetic and epigenetic techniques. Thus, here I will relate how I used the chance to add up-to-date genetic and genomic technologies further to demonstrate exactly how estrogen-responsive neurons work in the lordosis neural circuitry to manage the behavioral side of reproduction. The findings provided the first and clearest gene / behavior causal relations available. I show how genetic alterations regulate reproductive behavior.

Putting it another way, showing the estrogen-sensitive neurons that regulate our neural circuit for lordosis behavior and now showing how estrogen-sensitive genes regulate that behavior, we demonstrated for the first time how specific signaling chemicals from the body (hormones) acting on specific nerve cell groups regulate an entire instinctive mammalian behavior—a social behavior at that.

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