Monday, May 31, 2010

Quotation : Animal 16/06/10

Animals make us Human by Temple Grandin
Quote pg 297
" People forget that nature can be very harsh , and death in the wild is often more painful and stressful than death in a modern plant. Out on a western ranch I saw a calf that has its hide ripped completely off on the side by coyotes. It was alive and the rancher has to shoot it to put it out of its misery. If I have a choice , going to a well-run slaughter plant would be preferable to being ripped apart alive. "

Quote pg 5
" All animals and people have the same core emotion systems in the brain. ....
....Dr Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist ... who wrote the book Affective Neuroscience ...calls the core emotion systems "blue-ribbon emotions" because they generate well organized behavior sequences that can be evoked by localized electrical stimulation of the brain. This means that when you stimulate the brain systems for core emotions, you always get the same behavior from the animal. If you simulate the anger system , the animal snarls and bites . If you simulate the fear system , the animal freezes and runs away. ..... Electrode in the "SEEKING" system make the animal start moving forward , sniffing , and exploring its environment. When you stimulate these parts of the brain in people, they report the same emotions animals show. "

Blue Ribbon Emotion
(1) SEEKING
curiosity / interest / anticipation
(2) RAGE
(3) FEAR
(4) PANIC
(5) LUST
(6) CARE
(7) PLAY

Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin
Quote page 91
"Another huge difference between animals and people : I don't think animals have the defence mechanisms Sigmund Freud described in humans.Projection, displacement , repression , denial . Defense mechanisms defend against anxiety , and all defense mechanisms depend on repression in some way. Using repression , you push whatever it is you are afraid of down into your unconcious mind and focus your concious mind on a stand-in. Or in the case of higher, more mature defense mechanisms, like humor, altruism or intellectualization, you use humor , empathy and thought to push away the "real" emotion, which is fear."

Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin
Quote page 51
"The first and oldest brain, which is physically the lowest down from inside the skull, is the reptilian brain (corresponds to that in lizards that perform basic life support function like breathing) The next brain , in the middle, is the paleomammalian brain(corresponds to that in mammals which handles emotions). The third and newest brain, highest up inside your head, is the neomammalian brain(corresponds to that in primates , especially people , which handles reason and langauge)..... the three brains are connected by nerves. but each one has its own personality and its own control system : the "top" does not contol the "bottom"....The reason we have 3 seperate brains instead of one is that evolution doesn't throw away things that work....Paul MacLean, the originator of the three brain theory, believes that evolution simiply added each newly evolved brain on top of the one that came before , without changing the older brain. He calls this the triune brain theory.

Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin
Quote page 121
"Dr Rodolfo Llinas, a neuroscientist at NYU who wrote I of the Vortex : From Neurons to Self , says the brain evolved because creatures needed a brain to help them move around without knocking into things. He gives the sea squirt as the ultimate example of what having a brain is all about. The sae squirt is a primitive organism with about three hundred brain cells that starts out looking like a tadpole, then ends up looking a little bit like a turnip. For the first day of its life it swims around until it finds a permanent spot to latch on to. Once it finds its spot, it doesn't move again for the rest of its life.
Here is the interesting part : while it is swimming it has a primitive nervious system, but once it becomes attached to an object it eats up its own brain. It also eats its own tail muscles. Basically the sea squirt begins life as a kind of tadpole , with a tadpole like brain, then turns into an oyster-class creature. Since the sea squirt isn't going to move ever again, it does not need a brain. "

Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin
Quote page 305
"Fossil records show that whenever a species becomes domesticated its brain gets smaller. The horse brain shrank by 16% ; the pig brain shrank as much as 34% and the dog brain shrank 10 to 30% . This probably happened because once humans started to take care of these animals , they no longer needed the various brain functions in order to survive. In all domestic animals the forebrain, which hols the frontal lobes ... in humans the mid brain, which handles emotions and sensory data , and the olfactory bulbs, which handle smell .... Dog brains and human brains speccialized : humans took over the planing and organizing tasks , dogs took over the sensory tasks...coevolve..."

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