Signs of Anger: Representation of Agonistic Behaviour in Invertebrate Cognition

Abstract

In this essay I shall examine the representation of aggression and its issues in the model animal, the Fruit Fly, Drosophila melanogaster. The Fruit Fly is the model animal for genetics and more recently neuroscience. On the basis of its behaviour conclusions are being drawn that will help in the development of new treatments for clinical entities like aggression and anxiety disorders-the author questions those findings and asks whether more should be done to focus on the actual biology and behaviour-the Umwelt, instead of trying to bridge the gulf between invertebrate and human behaviours.Keywords Aggression . Agonistic behaviour . Invertebrates . Representation . Umwelt The Adaptive BehavioursThe behaviours of animals since 1956 have been traditionally catalogued as follows.We can see that three adaptive behaviours are at work when a male fruit fly approaches another as in the aggression experiments. There is a blurring and a difficulty in finding out when one behaviour ends. Figures 1 and 2.The chief rule for any good scheme of classification is that it should be natural and conform to discontinuity which exists in nature and which can be recognized by independent observers. The scheme of classification should be logical, and one that includes all related phenomena. (Scott 1956, p.214) When observing the behaviour of thousands of interactions, one has to decide quite what it is that you are interested in. This is achieved through cataloguing a

Anger and aggression research: A bibliometric analysis from 2012 to 2022

“…[40] Besides, drosophila melanogaster, the model animal for genetics and neuroscience, might help develop new treatment options for clinical entities such as aggression and anxiety disorders. [41] Also, drosophila melanogaster has been regarded as a new model organism for neurobiology of aggression. [42,43] However, aggression of drosophila melanogaster is not related to human emotion, aggression led by anger emotion is still frequently studied by rats.…”