Physical predictors, behavioural/emotional attributes and neurochemical determinants of dominant behaviour

Abstract

Significant differences in physical and behavioural/emotional/cognitive predictors and attributes, as well as of neurochemical inducers of behaviour, between dominant and subordinate animals are discussed. It is still unknown whether these factors are the causes of differences between dominants and subordinates, or vice versa whether the differences between dominants and subordinates are the origin of differences in these factors. The possibility is discussed that no differences exist among juveniles in the concentrations of neurochemical agents (known in the literature as determinants of dominance) between the brains of future dominants and future subordinates. We describe a study design that makes the assessment of the 'original' neurochemical profile of the brain possible.

The role of personality, cognition, and affective state in same-sex contests in the red junglefowl

“…Intra-sexual contests are prevalent in the animal kingdom, and contest winners enjoy increased access to resources, either directly or indirectly by obtaining a higher social status (Andersson 1994;Elwood and Arnott 2012). Morphological differences sometimes, but not always, predict the outcome of such contests (e.g., Andersson 1994;Briffa and Hardy 2013;Chichinadze et al 2014). Theoretically, differences in personality (i.e., individual differences in behavior that are consistent across time and/or context, Dall et al 2004) and cognition (i.e., how individuals perceive, store, and act on information from environmental stimuli; Shettleworth 2010) can also Communicated by K. v. Oers Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-019-2762-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.…”

“…Moreover, it is unclear whether the link between cognition and status is due to cognition influencing status (i.e., "prior attributes" hypothesis, Chase et al 2002), or status influencing cognition (i.e., "social state dependent": hypothesis, Langley et al 2018). To determine this, cognition needs to be measured before contests for status occur, and such studies are rare (Chichinadze et al 2014;Wascher et al 2018). The small number of studies that have done this show that, for example, spatial learning may not predict contest outcome, while lower overall cognitive performance can be associated with winning contests (Barnard and Luo 2002;Cole and Quinn 2012;Matzel et al 2017).…”

Effects of High-Frequency Electromagnetic Field on Ghrelin`S Quantitative Changes and Animal Memory

“…Increase of ammonia denotes excess process of excitation in CNS and, vice versa, a decrease in the amount of ammonia indicates activity of inhibition processes. Therefore, ammonia is considered as a chemical indicator of CNS functional state (Chichinadze, 2014). Following the said argument, we thought it necessary to calculate the ratios of glutamine acid in relation to GABA and glutamine acid.…”

Peer Review #3 of "The relationship between social rank and spatial learning in pheasants, Phasianus colchicus: cause or consequence? (v0.1)"

“…This may be because individuals that are inherently good at learning are more efficient at beneficial behaviours such as foraging (bumblebees, Bombus terrestris, Raine & Chittka, 2008), mate choice (Dukas & Ratcliffe, 2009), and navigating the social environment which brings fitness benefits. However, evidence that these differences in performance existed prior to the establishment of dominance is lacking (Chichinadze, Chichinadze, Gachechiladze, Lazarashvili, & Nikolaishvili, 2014). There has not been an explicit test of whether individual differences in cognitive performance determine social rank.…”