Dear Doug,
Recently, you asked if emotions might be
expressed by invertebrates. Intrigued with the question, I have found an
explanation of how the fruit fly (Drosophila) can be used to experiment with emotional
behaviors. The article’s title is: “The Genetic Basis of Emotional Behavior: Has the Time
Come for a Drosophila Model?”. After reading a lot about
various behaviors which fruit flies exhibit, interspersed with genetic
correlations to the behaviors, I finally reached this last part of the article:
The Drosophila multimodal sensory system
gathers information about the external world and translates it by means of the
nervous system into an appropriate behavioral response. In fact, flies possess
a large number of sensory organs that result in the perception of taste, touch,
smell, hearing, and vision (see reviews: Ebbs & Amrein, 2007;
Gerber & Stocker, 2007;
Kernan, 2007;
Stocker, 2004;
Ting & Lee, 2007).
They have a wide repertoire of behaviors discussed previously. Thus, the only
question that remains unresolved is whether flies exhibit some physiological
changes caused by an emotion-provoking stimulus.
The
classification of the emotions is another question still under debate. Many
researchers define some emotions as basic or primary, whereas others are
complex. According to the Ekman (1984)
classification, there are six basic emotions that appear to be innate: happiness, sadness, disgust,
fear, anger, and surprise.
Panksepp (1982)
distinguishes four basic emotional response patterns: panic, rage,
expectancy, and fear, which he revealed as consequences of
electrical stimulation of areas of the rat brain. Plutchik (1984)
has developed a classification model that is a blend of the previous, more
basic models. He suggests there are eight basic adaptive reactions (incorporation, rejection, protection,
destruction, reproduction, reintegration, orientation,
and exploration) that are
prototypes, single or in combination, of all emotions. Other researchers have
taken different approaches to classify emotions, which often overlap or/and
deviate from those classifications that already exist. It is definitely hard to
believe, or more precisely identify, that emotions such as jealousy and love
(by Darwin's
interpretation) may be present in flies. However, emotions such as fear and anger,
which underlie anxiety and depression, may, indeed, be there.
Interesting, the potential for fruit flies to be used to study anxiety and
depression has been stated several times (Belzung & Philippot, 2007;
Damasio, 2001;
Kalueff et al., 2007;
Moldin, 2000).
To date, Drosophila
has been successfully used as a model system to elucidate molecular,
physiological, and behavioral mechanisms of several human neurodegenerative
diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's (Chan & Bonini, 2000).
Remarkably,
Drosophila
shares with rodents and humans essential neurochemical substrates (e.g.,
specific receptors, enzymes signaling proteins, and neurotransmitter systems),
which are involved in the control and regulation of emotional behavior
(Finn et al., 2003;
Tarantino & Bucan, 2000).
All these findings suggest that our understanding of the genetic and cellular
mechanisms underlying emotional behavior can be vastly improved by using the
fruit fly as a genetically tractable model system.
I added the bold font to relevant words above. The complete article
is located at:
http://informahealthcare.com/doi/full/10.1080/01677060802471650
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
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From:
ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rich Cooper
Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2012
2:16 PM
To: '[ontolog-forum]
'
Subject: [ontolog-forum]
Self Interest Ontology
Dear Self Interested Ontologists,
I found this video of Peter Snyder
explaining how Darwin
experimented on 24 people using a single blind experiment related to emotions:
http://video.scientificblogging.com/video/Peter-Snyder-Darwin-experiment;Neurosciences
He describes it as:
the first example of a
prospective "single-blind" study of human perception of emotional
_expression_
Snyder also claims that this experiment
was echoed ever since by experimental psychologists looking for emotional
behaviors.
There is a good Wikipedia write-up describing
how emotions evolved at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_emotion
Describing Darwin’s work:
His work looked at not only facial expressions in both humans and animals, but
attempted to point out parallels between behaviors in
animals and in humans.
It concludes:
Primal emotions, such as fear, are associated
with ancient parts of the brain and presumably evolved among our premammal
ancestors. Filial emotions, such as a human mother's love for her offspring,
seem to have evolved among early mammals. Social emotions, such as guilt and
pride, evolved among social primates. Sometimes, a more recently evolved part
of the brain moderates an older part of the brain, such as when the cortex
moderates the amygdala's fear response. Evolutionary psychologists consider
human emotions to be best adapted to the life our ancestors led in nomadic
foraging bands.
I hope those of you who are interested in
emotional behaviors as explanations of human actions find these two references
useful.
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
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