The genetics of behavior

Abstract

A review of the papers published in the Journal of Higher Nervous Activity dedicated to behavioral and neurophysiological studies carried out using the genetic approach is presented. The review is based on classification, which subdivides the diversity of behavioral phenomena into three large categories: instinctive, acquired behavior, and elementary reasoning phenomena. The main contribution to these publications was made by researches at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Siberian Branch (Novosibirsk), Institute of Physiology, Russian Academy of Sciences (St.-Petersburg), and Department of Physiology of Higher Nervous Activity, Biological Faculty, Lomonosov State University (Moscow). The traditional lines of investigations are: behavioral and neurochemical consequences of domestication, numerous physiological correlations in rat strains selected for high and low excitability levels, and genetic studies of animal reasoning.