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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1988

An ethological analysis of depression: comparison between ethological recording and Hamilton rating of five endogenously depressed patients.

Five patients who had all been diagnosed as endogenously depressed at admission were rated twice a week and observed ethologically for 4 h/week during the entire hospitalization (4-11 weeks). Observations were carried out in the actual social environment of the ward. Data were analysed based on the parameters of behaviour diversity, behaviour activity, and marker elements. Depression was scored as low values of diversity and activity; improvement corresponded to higher values of these parameters. As possible markers of improvement, 8 behavioural elements have been singled out. One patient constituted a special case: at discharge she was rated as completely recovered; however, the ethological data indicated a serious aggravation. The day after discharge the patient attempted to commit suicide. It is concluded that ethological psychiatric research may be able to supplement traditional psychiatry with decisive information in the areas of diagnosis and treatment assessment.

Aged↗
PubMed1984

Tethered versus loose sows: ethological observations and measures of productivity. I. Ethological observations during pregnancy and farrowing.

Ethological parameters were recorded from sows housed in the same room and allocated to four experimental groups: sows that were tethered during pregnancy as well as from one week before farrowing to 8 weeks after; sows that were tethered during pregnancy but were loose during farrowing and lactation; sows that were loose during pregnancy in social groups of 2-5 animals and tethered during farrowing and lactation, and sows that were loose during pregnancy as in group 3 and also loose during farrowing and lactation. By using a timelapse-film technique it was found that pregnant sows in all groups had a similar diurnal rhythm with peaks around feeding times. The animals lay down for 20 h or more per day, and their activity was reduced due to tethering during the pregnancy period itself and due to preceding periods of tethering during farrowing and lactation. With increasing environmental temperature the loose sows increased the time spent lying on the side at the expense of lying on the belly. The tethered sows, however, showed no such change, but contrary to the loose sows they increased their activity. Observations around feeding time revealed that the tethered sows showed more aggression and fewer non aggressive social elements than the loose sows. Additionally their eating time was longer. Rubbing the neck was less and lying unquietly more frequent in tethered sows. Finally tethering during pregnancy reduced exploration directed towards straw and floor and increased stereotyped bar-biting and chain-nippling. With increasing temperature rubbing behaviour and drinking increased in tethered but not in loose sows. Timelapse-videorecording during the last 48 h prior to- and until the end of farrowing revealed that sows in all groups, no matter whether they were loose or tethered, showed a characteristical increase in nestbuilding activity until about 12-6 h before first piglet was born. Tethering in any period (pregnancy and/or farrowing-lactation) resulted in an increased farrowing time by approximately 100 min.

Animals↗
PubMed1979

The overlapping territories of psychiatry and ethology.

There have been numerous attempts since 1965 to stimulate more utilization of ethological methods and concepts in psychiatry. This literature is reviewed and an attempt is made to identify the factors which have inhibited an enhancement of this interaction to date. Most of the previous articles on this subject have appeared in edited collections, rather than in more widely circulated psychiatric or medical journals. Some of the articles focus on ethological theory, others on ethological research findings, and several on clinical analogies between animal and human situations. Regarding the specific way in which to integrate ethological thought into psychiatry, most frequently a phylogenetic approach is emphasized, however a few authors stress methodological considerations. In this paper, it is argued that artifactual differences have been the primary impediment to more interaction between these two rather similar fields. Scientific language difficulties, educational differences, and personal factors are described in this regard. Also, the real differences in approach and methodology, relative interest in normal vs. abnormal behavior, the degree of willingness to accept a phylogenetic approach, and the breadth of behavior being studied by the two fields are described. Examples of current areas of applicability of ethology to psychiatry are given: the attachment systems, early infantile autism, methodology, social psychiatry, and psychiatric education. Of these, the area where the most utilized is that of the occurred and in which the findings of ethology have been the most utilized is that of the attachment systems. Clinically applicable studies based upon the premise that attachment systems exist as understood ethologically are reviewed. These include study of extra physical contact between mothers and infants at birth, the prediction of child abuse and neglect utilizing observations from the immediate postpartum period, the treatment of failure to thrive by teaching attachment behavior, and developmental differences at 1 year correlated with differences in maternal responsiveness at 3 months. The usefulness of a biological approach to behavior is discussed, particularly in terms of utilizing operational criteria and from the point of view of differentiating etiological, phenomenological, and treatment models. A curriculum stressing the writings of Tinbergen, Lorenz, Bowlby, and Hailman is presented for possible use in psychiatric training programs interested in teaching an ethological approach to psychiatry. A briefer curriculum is also suggested from the psychiatric literature for use by ethologists. The epistemology and methodology of ethology possible will be of more use to psychiatry than the content. It is the opinion of the authors that the difficulties which have inhibited significant cooperation between psychiatry and ethology in the past are mostly artifactual, that such cooperation could be useful to both fields, and that a beginning to such interaction will require mutual familiarity with the literature.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Ethological research in clinical psychiatry: the study of nonverbal behavior during interviews.

Ethology is relevant to clinical psychiatry for two different reasons. First, ethology may contribute significantly to the development of more accurate and valid methods for measuring the behavior of persons with mental disorders. Second, ethology, as the evolutionary study of behavior, may provide psychiatry with a theoretical framework for integrating a functional perspective into the definition and clinical assessment of mental disorders. This article describes an ethological method for studying the nonverbal behavior of persons with mental disorders during clinical interviews and reviews the results derived from the application of this method in studies of patients who had a diagnosis of schizophrenia or depression. These findings and others that are emerging from current ethological research in psychiatry indicate that the ethological approach is not limited simply to a mere translation into quantitative and objective data of what clinicians already know on the basis of their judgment or the use of rating scales. Rather, it produces new insights on controversial aspects of psychiatric disorders. Although the impact of ethology on clinical psychiatry is still limited, recent developments in the fields of ethological and Darwinian psychiatry can revitalize the interest of clinical psychiatrists for ethology.

Animals↗
PubMed1998

[The relevance of ethology for psychiatry].

Darwin's evolutionary theory was the starting point for ethology, associated with an impact on scientific psychiatry. Psychiatry and ethology have common scientific and methodological prerequisites: inductive and deductive methods and "gestalt theory" as a basis for observing and describing behaviour patterns with subsequent causal analysis. There have been early endeavours to anchor ethological thinking in psychiatry but this tendency did not prevail for the following reasons: on the one hand, the methodology of ethology was immature or not applicable to man, whereas on the other hand the dominating experiential phenomenological school of Karl Jaspers and Kurt Schneider stressed the privileged position of human thinking, perception, and feeling. These fundamental categories of human existence did not appear amenable to any causal ethological analysis. Psychiatry and evolutionary biology were linked in an atrocious manner during the Nazi regime, both being abused for propaganda purposes and genocide. More recently, there is a "reconciliation" of both disciplines. In psychiatric nosology, operational, behaviour-oriented diagnostic systems have been introduced; ethology has opened up for theories of learning; new subsections like human ethology and sociobiology have evolved. The seeming incompatibility of (behavioural) biological psychiatry and experiential phenomenological psychopathology may be overcome on the basis of Konrad Lorenz' evolutionary epistemology. The functional analysis of human feeling and behaviour in psychotic disorders on the basis of Jackson's theory of the evolution and dissolution of the nervous system may serve as an example. The significance of an "ethological psychiatry" for diagnostic and therapeutical processes of psychiatric disorders derive from prognostic possibilities and the analysis of non-verbal communication in therapist-patient-interactions, but have not yet been systematically investigated.

Animals↗
PubMed1994

Modes and origins of mechanical and ethological isolation in angiosperms.

Mechanical and ethological isolation between species is widespread in angiosperms with specialized animal-pollinated flowers, being recorded in 29 species groups belonging to 27 genera and 16 families. Mechanical isolation occurs in two forms. (i) The common type, designated the Salvia type, operates when two or more species of flowers are adapted for different groups of pollinators with different body sizes and shapes. (ii) In the Pedicularis type two flower species have the same species of pollinator but pick up pollen from different parts of the pollinator's body. Four forms of ethological isolation are recognized. (i) In the Aquilegia type, which is widespread, ethological isolation is a side effect of mechanical isolation. (ii) The flower-constancy type, as the name suggests, is based on flower-constant foraging behavior. (iii) In the Ophrys type, floral scents attract male bees or wasps and play a role in their mating behavior; different species of flowers, often orchids, have different scents and attract different sets of hymenopteran species. (iv) The monotropy type occurs in plants pollinated by hymenopterans with species-specific or group-specific flower preferences for nutritive purposes (monotropic and oligotropic bees and fig wasps). Three modes of origin of floral isolation are confirmed by evidence: (i) mechanical and ethological isolation arising as a by-product of allopatric speciation, (ii) ethological isolation developing by selection for reproductive isolation per se, and (iii) mechanical isolation arising as a by-product of character displacement. Mode of origin i accounts for the Salvia and Aquilegia types of isolation in nine known species groups and for the Ophrys type in one group. Mode of origin ii accounts for the flower-constancy type of ethological isolation in two species groups. Mode of origin iii explains mechanical isolation in two groups. Sympatric origin of floral isolation by hybrid speciation and by flower constancy has been proposed, but these modes are undocumented and improbable.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

Ethological methods to develop nursing knowledge.

Researchers from various fields use ethological methods to systematically observe, describe, and measure animal and human nonverbal behavior. The purpose of this article is to argue that their application in nursing will benefit development of descriptive-level knowledge about complex behavioral phenomena. To advance the argument for applying these methods in nursing, we examine the compatibility of the philosophical assumptions underlying ethology with nursing, assess if ethology can help nursing achieve some of its aims, and determine the benefits of using ethology when observation of a phenomenon is required. Neonatal pain is used to illustrate how ethology can be used to develop descriptive-level nursing knowledge and midrange theory.

Clinical Nursing Research↗
PubMed1992

Relevance of ethology to psychiatry.

The interactions between ethology and psychiatry were reviewed. The ethological methods have provided more objective and theory-free observation techniques than the traditional psychiatric methods. The evolution-based ethological viewpoints afford some fundamentally new and more comprehensive approaches in understanding psychiatric conditions. The ethological theory has many concepts in common with various other schools of psychiatry, and thus is expected to act as a bridge to integrate them to lead to a more comprehensive psychiatric theory system. Ethology has not explored its potential in therapy, but may be useful, especially in terms of prevention and social psychiatry.

Animals↗
PubMed2000

The Ethological Approach to the Study of Human Behavior.

Human ethology, which was established on the basis of classical zooethology, can be an inspirational contribution to the study of human behavior. The study of behavior in natural conditions is stimulating as well as the primary interest of ethologists in such behavioral patterns showing evolutionary success and benefits and which are called inborn or innate. The extensive area of human behavior, nonverbal communication, can be investigated also with the application of some ethological knowledge. Human ethology can bring significant insight to the evaluation of the pathology of human behavior in various medical disciplines. An important task of medical prediction (prognosis) can be made more reliable by considering the ethology. A specific attribute of the species Homo sapiens, his culture, is acknowledged and discussed through human ethology.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1986

Ethological aspects of psychiatry.

Studies of non-verbal behaviour with respect to mentally ill patients is a relatively neglected aspect of psychiatry. Probably the main reason for this has been the lack of relevant methods. In recent years ethological techniques have emerged enabling the facial expressions, body postures and gestures of animals and humans to be objectively measured so that the functional importance is laid open for analysis. This article discusses the way ethological ideas and techniques can contribute to an understanding of the behaviour of the mentally ill. Examples are drawn from studies of flight behaviour which encompass those behavioural strategies associated with withdrawal or avoidance of a source of danger or harm. It is argued that much of the non-verbal behaviour in psychotic patients reflects blocked escape and that this is one of the reasons why such individuals are socially withdrawn. The application of ethology to the psychiatric assessment of patients is also demonstrated on the basis of ethological profiles from some selected patients. It is concluded that psychiatrists and ethologists should cooperate in the future evaluation of therapeutic measures including new drugs developed on the basis of ethological tests.

Aggression↗
PubMed1989

Ethological studies in animals and man, their use in psychiatry.

Ethology is concerned with the observation, description and measurement of the acts and postures which make up the behavioural repertoire of animals. Man too, exhibits analogous patterns of non-verbal behaviour, many of which serve social interactions. It is shown how ethological profiles of psychiatric patients can be constructed using the same methods as are used to analyse the social behaviour of rodents. It is argued that deficits in social behaviour are a key feature of the mentally ill patient and arise when flight, i. e. escape-oriented behaviour predominates. This notion is supported by an ethological study which shows that compared to healthy subjects, depressed patients exhibit fewer facial expressions and gestures which instigate or invite social interactions. These patterns serve to isolate the depressive patients from the group. With its emphasis upon objective analysis of behaviour, the ethological approach can provide a useful adjunct to conventional but largely subjective, clinical assessment schemes. It can also help to integrate findings in man and animals since in both, the behaviour is assessed in the same kind of units according to a common conceptual framework.

Animals↗
PubMed1994

Veterinary ethology and animal welfare.

Renewed interest in veterinary ethology has been stimulated by increasing sensitivity in modern societies with regard to the use of animals, and a concurrent shift in emphasis in the veterinary profession, including veterinary education. Veterinary ethology appears to form the common ground where animal welfare activists and veterinarians can meet. Ethological parameters seem to be adequate when evaluating animal welfare and well-being, as well as for correcting situations of animal abuse. This approach in assessing animal welfare avoids either a mechanistic or an emotional evaluation of the quality of life of an animal. The object of veterinary ethology is to teach responsible animal ownership. A practical checklist is provided which enables the full spectrum of animal welfare and well-being issues to be addressed from a veterinary point of view.

Animal Husbandry↗
PubMed1992

Introduction: applied ethology and poultry science.

As a scientific discipline, the study of the biological basis of behavior in animals, ethology, is comparatively new. Ethologists have traditionally conducted primarily observational studies designed to ascertain the evolutionary significance of behaviors in wild animals. There is, however, a growing branch of ethology that is concerned with the application of ethological principles to areas such as the management and welfare of economically important species like poultry. Because of the complexity of the causation and expression of behaviors in animals, it is particularly important that such studies be rigorously designed and analyzed. The purpose of this symposium was to stimulate interest in the study of poultry behavior and welfare, and to provide information about current methodology in ethology.

Animal Welfare↗
PubMed1992

[The importance of applied ethology for the execution of animal welfare legislation].

Applied ethology in general and farm animal ethology in particular have a great importance in connection with animal welfare regulations on a national and international level. They have through the legislation on animal welfare brought about important repercussions on housing of farm animals, wild animals and experimental animals in Switzerland. The animal welfare legislation has been a considerable boost to scientific research. The application of ethological knowledge in the legislation and in practice has indeed also its limits. The importance of applied ethology for animal welfare and for animal husbandry will still increase in future.

Animal Husbandry↗
PubMed1995

[Developmental trends in farm animal husbandry from an ethological point of view].

The current discussion on "semi-natural" or "extensive" animal production and husbandry shows that such terms are vague and are often used for various meanings. This paper addresses what can be referred to as natural environmental conditions from an ethological point of view, as well as the animal's environment in today's animal production, and how "near to nature" animal husbandry can realistically be. Apart from some outdoor systems with few ethological problems, the predominant part of milk and meat production in the future will still largely take place indoors. Thus, the development of housing conditions which are more appropriate to the animal's needs will still be an important issue of farm animal behaviour science. Consequently the essential environmental requirements of cattle and pigs derived from their species-specific behaviour are described and explained. In the future, an improved fulfillment of ethological requirements will lead to increased group housing in cold and open, structured barns with indoor straw-bedded lying compartments and integrated outdoor feeding and activity areas. This process will also be influenced by ecological, economic and technical aspects. Finally, several studies on cattle and pigs are presented which demonstrate the possible benefits from more appropriate housing systems or the fulfillment of single ethological requirements regarding behaviour, health, fertility and production of the animals.

Animal Husbandry↗
PubMed1975

[Ethology].

Ethology is defined as comparative study of Behaviours. The proceeding for a human ethology would consist in watching the psychopathologic phenomenon, as a natural happening, without modifying it by observer's presence. Then, in analysing this fact according to methods suggested from physiology. Ethological observation reveals a psychopathological fact about little chimpanzees in maternal deficiency: disturbance in directions for using the world and understanding rituals of communication. The experimental analysis of the fact puts forward notions of anxiolytic power of mother's bodily touch, during a fertile period of S.N.C. maturation. This leak produces in grown-up, emotional disturbances with exploration activities directed to his own body. But the group offers maternal substitute possibility in bringing an available satisfaction to the psychophysiological exigences. Chiefly, the ethological proceeding applied to the little Human leads to comparable conclusions, opening perhaps, experimental era of psychology of the Unconscious.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1992

History of developmental neuroethology: early contributions from ethology.

Ethology has its roots in the natural history of animal behavior. Questions of causation and function have historically been complementary, and each has rested upon a prior appreciation of the behavior of animals in nature. It is thus difficult to place a single time or place where ethology was born. Early evolutionary interests hinted at developmental constraints that continue to guide much research. It has only been relatively recently, however, that the explicit analysis of neural mechanisms in behavior has received the attention it deserves in developmental analyses. A mature developmental neuroethology will require a synthesis of the broad insights of ethology with refined neurobiological technique. Fundamental, however, is the primary focus upon behavior as it normally occurs.

Animals↗