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The Reticular Formation Command and Control System

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Abstract

No animal can fight, go to sleep, run away, and make love all at once. We have therefore listed mutually incompatible modes of vertebrate behavior as follows:

  1. 1.

    sleep

  2. 2.

    eat

  3. 3.

    drink

  4. 4.

    fight

  5. 5.

    flee

  6. 6.

    hunt (prey or fodder)

  7. 7.

    search (curiosity)

  8. 8.

    urinate

  9. 9.

    defecate 10. groom

  10. 11.

    engage in sex

  11. 12.

    lay eggs or give birth

  12. 13.

    suckle or hatch

  13. 14.

    build nests

Possibly, also:

  1. 15.

    migrate

  2. 16.

    hibernate

  3. 17.

    engage in certain special forms of instinctive behavior

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References

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K. N. Leibovic

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© 1969 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Kilmer, W., McCulloch, W.S. (1969). The Reticular Formation Command and Control System. In: Leibovic, K.N. (eds) Information Processing in The Nervous System. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-87086-6_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-87086-6_16

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-87088-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-87086-6

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