Ethopharmacology of Vocal Behavior in Primates

Abstract

Attempts to experimentally manipulate behavior by chemicals has had a long history. Many of the earlier findings must be viewed with some skepticism and uncertainty, however, due to the questionable mechanisms by which the relatively nonspecific chemicals being employed exerted their effects, as well as to a lack of attention to developing adequate behavioral testing paradigms. A list of some of the earlier work as it applies to primates was provided by Reynolds (1969). With the discovery of chemical ligands that bind to specific chemical receptor subtypes in the brain and other organs, a finer grained analysis of neurochemical systems and their distribution in the brain was initiated which has produced an overwhelming accumulation of neurochemical and neuroanatomical data. The application of this new knowledge to the study of behavioral mechanisms has failed to keep pace. Behavioral pharmacology has attempted to match the rigor of chemical analysis by using operant conditioning methods to impose a level of experimenter control on the behavioral performance of animal subjects. The fruits of this approach have been considerable (see S. D. Iversen and L. L. Iversen 1975, for a general overview;Dews 1972, for the basic methodologies, and the work of Barrett 1985, for a recent review of this approach in one species, the squirrel monkey). However, experimenter control of behavioral performance has been gained at the sacrifice of the questionable relevance of this approach to understanding the chemistry of behavior in natural settings. A few attempts have been made to address the issue of the chemistry of social behavior.