Adaptive Behavior

¿?

About adaptive behavior on “Multidisciplinary perspective on higher cognitive functions” CSIM-UPF 2009

Chimpanzees...(Apes)

Homos...(Prehistoric man)

“We”(Contemporary man)

( )ADN... Cells... Neurons...

( )ADN... Cells... Neurons...

¿?

Adaptive behavior society ....

Man threatened by predators

Dominate / control: Nature and all species...

What is the threat of modern man?

All other men....

Family Man

(Social specie)

Tribes, Clans, Mafias, Governments, Fraternity…

How to understand what makes us human, without dealing with the social factor?

¿?

human & social behavior are one*

!

* at least some believe that...

Humans are intensely social creatures and one of the major functions of our brains is to enable us to interact successfully in social groups.

“

” Tania Singer / Cognitive Neuroscience

≡RHESUS MACAQUE

Professor Darío MaestripieriUniversity of Chicago

Comparative Human Development

Evolutionary Biology

Neurobiology

In the struggle for survival, both resorted to the same solution:

HUMAN

SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE

By exploring the nature and evolution of macaque social organization, we can develop our knowledge of the rise of societies and their transformation during the course of evolution.

=

=↑ 99%HUMAN CHIMPANZEE

≡= ↓93%

HUMAN RHESUS MACAQUE

What make us human?

> More different genetic spoken, but more similar in social behavior.

…in the last episody

≡= ↓93%

HUMANRHESUS MACAQUE

SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE ?

> Deal with friends> Build partnerships> Power struggles> Trading in influence...

SOCIAL FACTORWhat make us human?

=

≠

• Use sex for social purpose• Tends to nepotism• In both there is a quest for power (by itself) and

as a means to get everything else (food, sex .. et)

----> MACACHIAVELISMO (MACACO + MACHIAVELO)

• Female Role

1HUMAN

RHESUS MACAQUE

CHIMPANZEE 2

3

Chimpanzee is more “intelligence” in many aspects than Macaco. But the macaque is most successful (¿?)

> Because, like humans macaques are sociable.

SOCIAL FACTORWhat make us human?

Family

“We are more dedicated to our children than any other species.”

SocialIntelligence

We're very good understanding what others think, or trying to do it.

(Mind reading & empathy)

Interpersonal Intelligence To Howard Gardner

SOCIAL FACTOR Social neuroscience

> Focusing on how the brain mediates social interactions

> Investigate the confluence of neural and social processes.

+• Functional MRI, • Transcranial magnetic stimulation, • Electrocardiograms, • Electromyograms, • Endocrinology...

(Methodology)

Social specie:>create organizations beyond the individual (families, cities, civilizations, and cultures...)

These structures evolved with neural and hormonal mechanisms to support them.(because social behavior helped these organisms to survive)

Social neuroscience

SN started to provide insights into neural mechanism underlying our capacity to*:

Represent others people’s intentions and beliefs

Share the feelings of others(in the absence of any direct emotional stimulation to themselves)

Mentalizing (ToM) Emphaty

> Often used as synonyms.> Sometimes the term empathy is dividing it into two subcomponents, emotional and cognitive empathy.

* T. Singer. There is neurological evidence for these division.

These concepts refer to our ability to put ourselves in the shoes of another person, be it in their mental or emotional shoes.

> Allow human beings to represent the states of other people (mental or emotional)

> Predict others’ behavior Successfully engage in social interactions.⇒

Mentalize Emphatize> Distinct and relay on different neuro-cognitive circuits

☺+ ☹ = ☺☺

understanding what this person is having as thoughts and intentions, the latter lacking a bodily sensation.

sharing the grief of a close friend feels fundamentally different than

(reflect upon others)

(share others feelings)

>This ability is absent in monkeys and only exists in a rudimentary form in apes.

> The lack of a ToM in most autistic children could explain their observed failures in communication and social interaction

Several studies have repeatedly given evidence for the involvement of three brain areas:

● the temporal poles, ● the posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS) and most consistently ● an area in the medial pre-frontal lobe (mPFC)

>Activate when mentalizing about thoughts, intentions or beliefs of others but also when people are attending to their own mental states.

> Empathy is crucial for the creation of affective bonds between mother and child, and later between partners and larger social groups

> Observation or imagination of another person in a particular emotional state automatically activates a representation of that state in the observer with its associated autonomic and somatic responses.

Brain activity associated with different empathic responses ( domains of touch, smell and pain):

● Activation in anterior insula (AI) cortex, (associated with the processing and feeling of disgust)● Activation in secondary somato-sensory cortex (SII) (involved in processing and feeling the sensation of touch).

> Evidence for neuronal correlates of mind reading and empathy

MentalizeEmphatize

> different ontogenetic trajectories

reflecting the differential development of the underlying brain structures

sharing sensations and emotions with others

associated with limbic and para-limbic structures (‘‘emotional’’ or ‘‘social’’ brain)

developed early in phylogeny.

Related with structures that belong to Neo-cortex

developed late in phylogeny.

ability to understand the mental states of others

≠

A newborn macaque imitates tongue protrusion

Mirror neurons….

more than just imitation....

> Mirror system might underlie our ability to understand other people’s intentions

by providing us with an automatic simulation of their actions, goals and intentions.

The discovery of mirror neurons demonstrated that a translation mechanism is present in the primate brain and automatically elicited when viewing others’ actions

> in Terms of Evolutionary Theory

provides a great ADVANTAGE (to humans)

Human can bring an action to conclusion > before it concludes in real time

(having the possibility of taking immediate action to avoid danger)

ReferencesSinger, Tania. The neuronal basis and ontogeny of empathy and mind reading: Review of literature and implications for futer research. Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Welcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, University College of London,17 Queen Square, WC1N 3AR London, UKhttp://eprints.nuim.ie/1003/1/Haydn__MPP_issue_4_2007.pdf

Gurmin, J. Haydn. Edith Stein, and Tania Singer. A comparison of Phenomenological and Neurological Approaches to the ‘Problem of Empathy’. Maynooth Philosophical Papers Issue 4 (2007). An Anthology of Current Research

http://primate.uchicago.edu/dario.htm

http://www.redesparalaciencia.com/1659/redes/2009/redes-46-macacos-y-humanos-el-secreto-del-exitohttp://www.redesparalaciencia.com/1637/redes/2009/redes-45-el-experto-y-sabio-inconsciente

http://www.elcervellsocial.net/backend/imagenes_panel/almacen_documentos/textos_profesores.pdfhttp://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurociencia_social

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurona_espejo

http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11777

http://jn.physiology.org/cgi/content/abstract/69/6/1810Gustatory neural coding in the amygdala of the alert macaque monkeyT. R. Scott, Z. Karadi, Y. Oomura, H. Nishino, C. R. Plata-Salaman, L. Lenard, B. K. Giza and S. Aou. National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Myodaiji, Japan.