Physiological Mechanisms and Behaviour

Abstract

Behaviour is the tool with which an animal uses its environment. Through behaviour the animal manoeuvres itself in an organised and directed way and manipulates objects in the environment to suit its requirements. In order to behave, the animal must act as an integrated and coordinated unit. It must juggle a bewildering array of stimuli from inside its body and from the external environment and organise the information into a series of commands to its muscles. In Chapter 2 we shall examine this process of integration and see how internal and external stimuli from the environment are translated by the animal into behaviour. Before we can do that, however, we need to know something about the sources and processing of information in the animal’s body. Animals have evolved complex systems of cells and chemicals whose task it is to detect, transmit, integrate and store environmentally supplied information for later use in making decisions. They consist of (a) various types of sensory cell which pick up different changes in the environment, (b) a more or less complex system of nerve cells which transmits and integrates information from sensory receptors, (c) chemical messengers which transmit information on a more leisurely time scale than the nervous system and (d) muscle cells which transform information from the nervous system into actions. In this chapter, we shall examine these components to see how they interact to produce behaviour.