Advisor Information
Jeffrey French
Location
UNO
Presentation Type
Poster
Start Date
1-3-2019 9:00 AM
End Date
1-3-2019 10:15 AM
Abstract
Behavioral traits, such as how adventurous an individual is, can vary both across individuals and within an individual across contexts. However, there is evidence that individuals are stable across time in how they respond to certain stimuli. This consistency in behavioral responses to similar environments is termed a behavioral syndrome, or set of correlated behavior. We assessed the degree to which individual marmoset monkeys were consistent across four behavioral tests that measured different aspects of novelty seeking. The four tasks included exposure to a novel object in a familiar environment, exposure to a novel environment, behavioral flexibility in response to a changing reward task, and responsiveness to a potential threat (a human “intruder”). We examined whether behavioral responses to these four distinct tasks resulted in a similar pattern of responses (e.g., whether the responses constituted a behavioral syndrome), or whether each task instead evoked a unique response irrespective of how the individual had responded to the other tasks. In the future, these behavioral metrics can be correlated to underlying genetic differences across individuals to assess the degree to which interindividual differences are attributable to underlying biological differences.
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Included in
Marmosets Respond Consistently to Threats Across Contexts
UNO
Behavioral traits, such as how adventurous an individual is, can vary both across individuals and within an individual across contexts. However, there is evidence that individuals are stable across time in how they respond to certain stimuli. This consistency in behavioral responses to similar environments is termed a behavioral syndrome, or set of correlated behavior. We assessed the degree to which individual marmoset monkeys were consistent across four behavioral tests that measured different aspects of novelty seeking. The four tasks included exposure to a novel object in a familiar environment, exposure to a novel environment, behavioral flexibility in response to a changing reward task, and responsiveness to a potential threat (a human “intruder”). We examined whether behavioral responses to these four distinct tasks resulted in a similar pattern of responses (e.g., whether the responses constituted a behavioral syndrome), or whether each task instead evoked a unique response irrespective of how the individual had responded to the other tasks. In the future, these behavioral metrics can be correlated to underlying genetic differences across individuals to assess the degree to which interindividual differences are attributable to underlying biological differences.