At the end of the 1920s, Tanganyika Territory experienced several serious rodent outbreaks that threatened cotton and other grain production. At the same time, regular reports of pneumonic and bubonic plague occurred in the northern areas of Tanganyika. These events led the British colonial administration to dispatch several studies into rodent taxonomy and ecology in 1931 to determine the causes of rodent outbreaks and plague disease, and to control future outbreaks. The application of ecological frameworks to (...) the control of rodent outbreaks and plague disease transmission in colonial Tanganyika Territory gradually moved from a view that prioritised 'ecological interrelations' among rodents, fleas and people to one where those interrelations required studies into population dynamics, endemicity and social organisation in order to mitigate pests and pestilence. This shift in Tanganyika anticipated later population ecology approaches on the African continent. Drawing on sources from the Tanzania National Archives, this article offers an important case study of the application of ecological frameworks in a colonial setting that anticipated later global scientific interest in studies of rodent populations and rodent-borne disease ecologies. (shrink)

In the quest to discover the neural bases of cognition, rigorous behavioral tools are equally as important as sophisticated tools for neural intervention. This paper evaluates several episodes in the development of a novel behavioral tool for rodent cognitive testing, the rodent touchscreen operant chamber. Using conceptual tools on offer in the philosophical literature on exploratory experimentation and control, I illuminate how optimization of this behavioral tool and an understanding of the causal knowledge it may be used (...) to generate historically has involved dynamic interplay between community-driven exploratory practices operating in parallel with causal hypothesis-driven research. (shrink)

In recent times, previous studies have reported the manipulation of tools by rats and degus in controlled experimental settings. However, a previous study reported that only one out of eight experimentally naïve rats could manipulate a rake-shaped tool according to the position of a food reward without prior experience of obtaining the reward with the tool before the test. The present study aimed to improve the training of rats and investigate rodents’ ability to manipulate tools according to food position. Stricter (...) criteria were employed when training the rats to promote the rats’ monitoring of their own tool manipulation. Additional training was introduced to give them the opportunity to learn that the reward moved closer to them by pulling an object connected to the reward. The present study showed that only one of eight rats could manipulate a tool according to the position of the reward without prior experience of obtaining the reward with the tool or perceiving that part of the tool came in contact with the reward, as the previous study showed. The change in training did not enhance the rats’ tool-manipulation ability according to the food position. These procedures should be conducted in a wider variety of animals to investigate whether the training in motion control can promote the subjects’ effective tool-use behavior. (shrink)

In several experimental conditions, neuronal excitation at the perirhinal cortex (PC) does not propagate to the entorhinal cortex (EC) due to a “wall” of inhibition, which may help to create functional coupling and un‐coupling of the PC and EC in the medial temporal lobe. However, little is known regarding the coupling control process. Herein, we propose that the deep layer of area 35 in the PC plays a pivotal role in opening the gate for coupling, thus allowing the activity (...) in the PC to propagate to the EC. Using voltage‐sensitive dye imaging for the brain slices of rodents, we show that a slowly inactivating potassium conductance in this area is essential to induce excitation overtaking the inhibitory control. This coupling between the distinct neural circuits persists for at least 1 h. We elucidate further implications of this network‐level plastic behavior and its mechanism. (shrink)

From 1942 to 1952, a programme took place at Johns Hopkins to devise new methods of controlling Baltimore’s rat population. This article focuses on three individuals closely connected to this project at various stages of its development: psycho-biologist Curt Richter, animal ecologist David E. Davis, and ecologist and psychologist John B. Calhoun. For all three, the challenges of controlling rat numbers highlighted the significance of stress – a homeostatic mechanism critical to the survival of the animal. This was a process (...) that was analyzed and manipulated by (re)introducing the wild rat into the laboratory. Here the rat not only contributed to new methods of rodent control, but offered new possibilities for the control and improvement of humankind. Yet it was not just the animal, but the physical structure of the laboratory that came to model the world outside. Through examining the experimental systems of the three scientists, this article will trace a series of transgressions between laboratory and field, urban and wild, animal and human. The result was that while animals were used to model the behaviour and pathologies of human city dwellers, the laboratory spaces in which they existed came to model the urban environment. We shall also see how differing perspectives on the value and uses of animal models and environments encouraged and reinforced alternative visions as to the role of science in the service of the city. (shrink)

InThe Cognitive-Emotional Brain(Pessoa 2013), I describe the many ways that emotion and cognition interact and are integrated in the brain. The book summarizes five areas of research that support this integrative view and makes four arguments to organize each area. (1) Based on rodent and human data, I propose that the amygdala's functions go beyond emotion as traditionally conceived. Furthermore, the processing of emotion-laden information is capacity limited, thus not independent of attention and awareness. (2) Cognitive-emotional interactions in the (...) human prefrontal cortex (PFC) assume diverse forms and are not limited to mutual suppression. Particularly, the lateral PFC is a focal point for cognitive-emotional interactions. (3) Interactions between motivation and cognition can be seen across a range of perceptual and cognitive tasks. Motivation shapes behavior in specific ways – for example, by reducing response conflict or via selective effects on working memory. Traditional accounts, by contrast, typically describe motivation as a global activation independent of particular control demands. (4) Perception and cognition are directly influenced by information with affective or motivational content in powerful ways. A dual competition model outlines a framework for such interactions at the perceptual and executive levels. A specific neural architecture is proposed that embeds emotional and motivational signals into perception and cognition through multiple channels. (5) A network perspective should supplant the strategy of understanding the brain in terms of individual regions. More broadly, in a network view of brain architecture, “emotion” and “cognition” may be used as labels of certain behaviors, but will not map cleanly into compartmentalized pieces of the brain. (shrink)

The hypothalamus is a specialized area in the brain that integrates the control of energy homeostasis. More than 70 years ago, it was proposed that the central nervous system sensed circulating levels of metabolites such as glucose, lipids and amino acids and modified feeding according to the levels of those molecules. This led to the formulation of the Glucostatic, Lipostatic and Aminostatic Hypotheses. It has taken almost that much time to demonstrate that circulating long‐chain fatty acids act as signals (...) of nutrient surplus in the hypothalamus. Moreover, pharmacological and/or genetic inhibition of fatty acid synthase, AMP‐activated protein kinase and carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1 results in profound decrease in feeding and body weight in rodents. The molecular mechanism behind these actions depends on changes in the cellular pool of malonyl‐CoA and fatty acyl‐CoAs. Current evidence also suggests that this pathway may play a major role in the physiological regulation of feeding, by integrating hormonal and nutrient‐derived signals in the hypothalamus. Here, we summarize what is known about hypothalamic fatty acid metabolism and feeding control and provide future directions for research. Understanding these molecular mechanisms could provide new targets for the treatment of obesity and related disorders. BioEssays 29: 248–261, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

John Searle’s Chinese Room Argument purports to demonstrate that syntax is not sufficient for semantics, and, hence, because computation cannot yield understanding, the computational theory of mind, which equates the mind to an information processing system based on formal computations, fails. In this paper, we use the CRA, and the debate that emerged from it, to develop a philosophical critique of recent advances in robotics and neuroscience. We describe results from a body of work that contributes to blurring the divide (...) between biological and artificial systems; so-called animats, autonomous robots that are controlled by biological neural tissue and what may be described as remote-controlled rodents, living animals endowed with augmented abilities provided by external controllers. We argue that, even though at first sight, these chimeric systems may seem to escape the CRA, on closer analysis, they do not. We conclude by discussing the role of the body–brain dynamics in the processes that give rise to genuine understanding of the world, in line with recent proposals from enactive cognitive science. (shrink)

Current theories suggest that the brain is the sole source of mental illness. However, affective disorders, and major depressive disorder (MDD) in particular, may be better conceptualized as brain-body disorders that involve peripheral systems as well. This perspective emphasizes the embodied, multifaceted physiology of well-being, and suggests that afferent signals from the body may contribute to cognitive and emotional states. In this review, we focus on evidence from preclinical and clinical studies suggesting that afferent thermosensory signals contribute to well-being and (...) depression. Although thermoregulatory systems have traditionally been conceptualized as serving primarily homeostatic functions, increasing evidence suggests neural pathways responsible for regulating body temperature may be linked more closely with emotional states than previously recognized, an affective warmth hypothesis. Human studies indicate that increasing physical warmth activates brain circuits associated with cognitive and affective functions, promotes interpersonal warmth and prosocial behavior, and has antidepressant effects. Consistent with these effects, preclinical studies in rodents demonstrate that physical warmth activates brain serotonergic neurons implicated in antidepressant-like effects. Together, these studies suggest that (1) thermosensory pathways interact with brain systems that control affective function, (2) these pathways are dysregulated in affective disorders, and (3) activating warm thermosensory pathways promotes a sense of well-being and has therapeutic potential in the treatment of affective disorders. (shrink)

Epithelial stem cells have been identified in integumental structures such as hairs and continuously growing teeth of various rodents, and in the gut. Here we propose the involvement of epithelial stem cells in the continuous tooth replacement that characterizes non‐mammalian vertebrates, as exemplified by the zebrafish. Arguments are based on morphological observations of tooth renewal in the zebrafish and on the similarities between molecular control of hair and tooth formation. Dissection of the molecular cascades underlying the regulation of the (...) epithelial stem cell niche might open perspectives for new regenerative treatment strategies in clinical dentistry. BioEssays 26:665–671, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

There is much evidence, both in humans and rodents, that while navigating males tend to use geometric information whereas females rely more on landmarks. The present work attempts to alter the geometry bias in female rats. In Experiment 1 three groups of female rats were trained in a triangular-shaped pool to find a hidden platform, whose location was defined in terms of two sources of information, a landmark outside the pool and a particular corner of the pool. On a subsequent (...) test trial with the triangular pool and no landmark, females with prior experience with two other pool shapes–with a kite-shaped pool and with a rectangular-shaped pool, were significantly more accurate than control rats without such prior experience. Rats with a short previous experience–with the rectangular-shaped pool only did not differ from Group NPE. These results suggest that the previous experience with different shaped-pools could counteract the geometry bias in female rats. Then, Experiment 2A directly compared the performance of LPE males and females of Experiment 1, although conducting several test trials. The differences between males and females disappeared in the three tests. Moreover, in a final test trial both males and females could identify the correct corner in an incomplete pool by its local, instead of global, properties. Finally, Experiment 2B compared the performance of NPE rats, males and females, of Experiment 1. On the test trial with the triangular pool and no landmark, males were significantly more accurate than females. The results are explained in the framework of selective attention. (shrink)

Although VL30 retrotransposable elements have been associated with certain cancers for nearly twenty years, because of their expression in rodent malignancies and recombination into murine sarcoma viruses, their causative role, if any, in cancer has been uncertain and enigmatic. Recent findings suggest loss of normal transcriptional control of specific VL30 element expression may make a critical contribution to tumor progression at a step associated with malignant conversion, by bringing into play a cellular program normally involved in wound healing. (...) This program, the fibroblast anoxic response system, includes an adaptation to glycolytic metabolism, secretion of metalloproteinases, and activation of an endonuclease. While appropriate for facilitating debris removal during wound healing, loss of control of this program in a cell which has already progressed to the benign neoplastic state has the potential to simultaneously produce the invasiveness and genomic instability charateristic of malignancy. Examination of tumors and tumor derived cell lines has confirmed that key aspects of this system are in fact activated in cancer. (shrink)

Transmembrane receptor tyrosine kinases that bind to peptide factors transmit essential growth and differentiation signals. A growing list of orphan receptors, of which some are oncogenic, holds the promise that many unknown ligands may be discovered by tracking the corresponding surface molecules. The neu gene (also called erbB‐2 and HER‐2) encodes such a receptor tyrosine kinase whose oncogenic potential is released in the developing rodent nervous system through a point mutation. Amplification and overexpression of neu are thought to contribute (...) to malignancy of certain human adenocarcinomas. The search for soluble factors that interact with the Neu receptor led to the discovery of a 44 kDa glyco‐protein that induces phenotypic differentiation of cultured mammary tumor cells to growth‐arrested and milk‐producing cells. The Neu differentiation factor (NDF or heregulin), however, also acts as a mitogen for epithelial, Schwann and glial cells. Multiple forms of the factor are produced by alternative splicing and their expression is confined predominantly to the central and to the peripheral nervous systems. One identified neuronal function of this family of polypeptides is to control the formation of neuromuscular junctions, but their physiological role in secretory epithelia is still unknown. Other open questions relate to the transmembrane topology of various precursors, the identity of a putative co‐receptor, the possible existence of additional ligands of Neu and the functional significance of the interaction between Neu and at least three highly related receptor tyrosine kinases. (shrink)

The Palgrave Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics is a recent addition to anthologies in the field, joining The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics, and The Routledge Handbook of Animal Ethics. Edited by Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, the book boasts more than 30 contributors, many of them philosophers, but also including sociologists, scientists, theologians, lawyers, psychologists, and animal advocates. The editors were intentionally multidisciplinary in their approach, noting that “there is currently no book (...) series that is a focus for multidisciplinary research in the field,” and calling attention to the need not only for philosophical inquiry into what we owe animals, but also into the “social, legal, cultural, religious and political” influences that “legitimate animal abuse” (p. viii).The book is divided up into four sections: “The Ethics of Control,” “The Ethics of Captivity,” “The Ethics of Killing,” and “The Ethics of Causing Suffering.” Each of these sections includes an editorial introduction and multiple entries spanning diverse issues, including animal research, animal agriculture, hunting, fishing, zoos, the role of animals in religion, the role of language in structuring thought about nonhuman animals, and others. Similarly, the chapters span issues affecting many species, including farmed animals, fish, deer, elephants, whales and dolphins, rodents, companion animals (e.g., dogs and cats), and others.While the book is billed as a “practical” handbook of animal ethics, it does wade into some conceptual territory, tackling such issues as the ethical permissibility of confining and controlling animals, the question of whether (painless) death harms nonhuman animals, and the comparative wrongness of killing humans and nonhuman animals. This said, it largely stays away from more detailed discussion of normative ethical theory and the moral standing of nonhuman animals, focusing instead on the specific ways that humans treat nonhuman animals. In focusing more on practical than theoretical ethics, the Palgrave Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics both complements and differentiates itself from some other anthologies in the field.The book has several strengths to recommend it, the first being the logic of its organization. The ethically problematic aspects of humans’ treatment of nonhuman animals frequently map onto one or more of the categories of causing suffering, killing, and confining. The organization of chapters under these section headings helps to provide a rational structure to the text, as well as an easy way for the reader to navigate which sections they would like to tackle first (although there is some overlap between sections). With this, the explicit and sustained focus on the ethics of control (section 1) is a welcome and differentiating feature of the text. Much prior work in animal ethics has addressed questions of harming and killing animals, but the ethical permissibility of control per se has received comparatively lesser attention.The multidisciplinary nature of the book is also a selling point. In any anthology on animal ethics, the reader can expect entries from academic philosophers, but the book's inclusion of empirical scientific reviews, sociological and legal analyses, and work in discourse analysis are strengths. One danger in focusing exclusively on what we ought to think and do is that it ignores the influences on how we actually think and act. Many of the book's entries address these influences and thus round out the normative analysis.The middle two sections of the book seem most successful to this reviewer. The section on the ethics of killing contains two well-argued conceptual chapters, coupled with practical analyses of fishing, deer hunting, and religious perspectives on killing nonhuman animals. While animal research and animal agriculture are not directly addressed in this section, the conceptual arguments can be applied to the killing of nonhuman animals in these contexts. The section on the ethics of captivity is not as conceptually strong but contains excellent empirical chapters on the welfare of elephants, whales, and dolphins in captivity. Prior work in normative ethics has established how confinement can be harmful to nonhuman animals by directly causing suffering or depriving them of opportunities for satisfaction (see, e.g., DeGrazia, 2002). However, it is important to complement such theoretical frameworks with substantiation of how captivity actually is harmful to nonhuman animals in virtue of the interests they have and how captivity infringes upon such interests. These chapters argue that captivity is fundamentally (and not conditionally) incompatible with the welfare of elephants, whales, and dolphins.If I have one criticism of the book, it is that it could be stronger on certain conceptual issues. Acknowledging its practical and not theoretical focus, it is nonetheless true that if controlling, confining, killing, and causing suffering to nonhuman animals is wrong, then it is important to say something about why it is wrong—even if that explanation amounts to a short synopsis of more theoretical work done elsewhere. While the question of killing is addressed well, the section on the ethics of causing suffering does not address directly why (or under what conditions) causing suffering is wrong. The chapters in this section are worthwhile reading and review practices causing animal suffering in a variety of contexts. Nonetheless, some additional conceptual front matter would have strengthened the section overall.From a conceptual standpoint, the sections on the ethics of control and captivity seem to hang together. Confinement is a form of control and might be argued against on the grounds that it deprives nonhuman animals of opportunities for satisfaction, directly causes physical injury, or causes psychological distress, anxiety, or boredom. These kinds of arguments fit into interest-based accounts of animal welfare, which in turn can be subsumed under a principle of nonmaleficence: We should not cause harm to animals under some specified set of conditions; confinement harms animals in ways x, y, or z; therefore, we should not confine animals in this way.While such interest-based arguments do make an appearance in the text, several of the book's authors also elaborate an autonomy-based argument against control and confinement: Nonhuman animals have their own kind of autonomy, and just as infringing upon the autonomy of paradigmatic persons is wrong, infringing upon nonhuman animals’ autonomy is also wrong. The problem with this argument is that different kinds of autonomy are likely to be at stake. The wrongness of infringing upon paradigmatic persons’ autonomy is often explained by the facts that we are self-conscious, capable of abstract thought (including language use), and capable of intentionally choosing the kind of life that we want to live (e.g., relating to long-term projects or schemes of personal ethics). It could be argued that because nonhuman animals are not capable of exercising this kind of autonomy, they therefore cannot be harmed by its infringement.Some of the book's authors chip away at this presumption, noting (inter alia) that nonhuman animals have desires to move around and do things that are thwarted by confinement or control, that these desires constitute a form of agency, and that (following previous scholarship) nonhuman animals possess some forms of self-awareness. Specifically, the chapters from Valéry Giroux and Carl Saucier-Bouffard, Lori Gruen, and Carlos Naconecy consider such arguments. Naconecy draws upon David DeGrazia's (2009) analysis of animal self-awareness in making his argument. Though the issue deserves more treatment than I can give it here, it seems that nonhuman animals’ autonomy and self-awareness, even if granted, are of a different sort than that possessed by paradigmatic persons. Specifically, (most) nonhuman animals cannot feel wronged by having their preferences overridden because they are not the kinds of beings who are capable of abstractly considering themselves as autonomous and worthy of self-direction. They may desire things, and thwarting these desires might sometimes harm them, but that is a different kind of argument.Infringing upon nonhuman animals’ (more limited kind of) autonomy might nonetheless be wrong, but if different sorts of autonomy are at stake, then moral arguments relating to paradigmatic persons cannot be directly transposed to nonhuman animals. Some additional argument(s) must be supplied, but (on my reading) the book's contributors stop short of this. Nonetheless, as stated above, the ethics of control and questions of nonhuman animals’ autonomy are not as well trod as other issues in animal ethics. Despite my taking issue with some of the details, the discussions contained in the book's first two sections are worthy reading and help to advance the field.Overall, the book's chapters are well written and cogently argued, and given its breadth, different readers will find different things to value in it. The Palgrave Handbook of Practical Animal Ethics is a welcome addition to the literature. (shrink)

In Kafka’s literary world, several animals emerge; they belong to an odd and enigmatic fauna, on the edge between violence and artistry but also between stillness and music; according to the writer, scripture represents both the fault and the punishment waiting for the solitary artist. Animals, especially depicted as hordes of small mice or other rodents, also hint to the heterogeneous structure of the Self, who doesn’t manage to keep under control all the divisions in his ambiguous dentity. Through (...) opposition between the point of view of the subject, who considers his own isolation as indispensable to carry on writing, and the multitude of escaping small animals, Kafka also expresses and experiences his own impossibility of “description” (Beschreibung). In the meantime, Kafka’s animals embody the creatural and unconscious sources of imagination the writer draws from that constantly escape his own control and willingness, pushing forwards into an unknown and inhospitable region, towards the wasteland, the eternal winter that can be identified with scripture. In writing, a deep metamorphosis of the Self takes place. Kafka shares this belief with one of the writers he most admired and considered his master, Gustave Flaubert, who firmly thought that, while writing, one loses his previous identity, becoming someone else, even assuming the appearence of the “otherness”. We can state that Kafka’s imagery of animals takes to the extreme the paradox and ambiguity the idea of writing relies on, also reproducing, especially, in his hybrid creatures, the feeling of uncertainty and lack of safety of the assimilated Jewish artist. (shrink)

The main function of vision in many animals is to control movement. In rodents, some visuomotor acts require the construction of models of the external world while others rely on Gibsonian invariants. Such findings support Norman's dual processing approach but it is not clear that the two types of processing rely on homologs of visual processing streams described in primates.

Burrowing mammals are ubiquitous on farms in South Africa and can hinder agricultural practices. This study explored farmer perspectives of these species, and specifically the factors that influence these perspectives. Forty-four farmers responded to a questionnaire that assessed their ecological knowledge of, tolerance towards and lethal management of burrowing mammals that occur on their farms. The results from generalised linear models showed that neither farmer age, nor level of education are accurate predictors of ecological knowledge, overall tolerance towards burrowers, or (...) their lethal management. Knowledge of burrowing mammals showed a significant relationship with tolerance, with more knowledgeable individuals displaying higher levels of tolerance. However, a farmer’s overall tolerance towards burrowing species did not affect the number of species managed. Our results also suggest that different values are attached to different species when it comes to lethal management. Thus, farmers commonly controlled the numbers of the problem rodent species, Highveld gerbil (Gerbilliscus brantsii) and Cape ground squirrel (Xerus inauris), but were less likely to manage black-backed jackal (Canis mesomelas) and warthog (Phacochoerus africanus), even when experiencing these as problematic. We suggest that the larger, more charismatic species possibly evoke more sympathy from farmers. Agro-ecosystems are likely to become increasingly important for conservation in the future, and we encourage continued studies on the environmental attitudes and approaches of agricultural practitioners as a means to understanding the current status and future trends in ecologically sustainable agriculture. (shrink)

Recently a role for the vagus nerve in conditioning food preferences was established in rodents. In a prospective controlled clinical trial in humans, invasive vagus nerve stimulation shifted food choice toward lower fat content. Here we explored whether hedonic aspects of an orally sampled food stimulus can be modulated by non-invasive transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) in humans. In healthy participants (n= 10, five women, 20–32 years old, no obesity) we tested liking and wanting ratings of food samples with varying (...) fat or sugar content with or without tVNS in a sham-controlled within-participants design. To determine effects of tVNS on food intake, we also measured voluntary consumption of milkshake. Spontaneous eye blink rate was measured as a proxy for dopamine tone. Liking of low-fat, but not high-fat puddings, was higher for tVNS relative to sham stimulation. Other outcomes showed no differences. These findings support a role for the vagus nerve promoting post-ingestive reward signals. Our results suggest that tVNS may be used to increase liking of low-calorie foods, which may support healthier food choices. (shrink)

The emerging field of lipidomics has identified lipids as key players in disease physiology. Their physicochemical diversity allows precise control of cell structure and signaling events through modulation of membrane properties and trafficking of proteins. As such, lipids are important regulators of brain function and have been implicated in neurodegenerative and mood disorders. Importantly, environmental chronic stress has been associated with anxiety and depression and its exposure in rodents has been extensively used as a model to study these diseases. (...) With the accessibility to modern mass‐spectrometry lipidomic platforms, it is now possible to snapshot the extensively interconnected lipid network. Here, we review the fundamentals of lipid biology and outline a framework for the interpretation of lipidomic studies as a new approach to study brain pathophysiology. Thus, lipid profiling provides an exciting avenue for the identification of disease signatures with important implications for diagnosis and treatment of mood disorders. (shrink)

Sleep is a fundamental property conserved across species. The homeostatic induction of sleep indicates the presence of a mechanism that is progressively activated by the awake state and that induces sleep. Several lines of evidence support that such function, namely, sleep need, lies in the neuronal assemblies rather than specific brain regions and circuits. However, the molecular mechanism underlying the dynamics of sleep need is still unclear. This review aims to summarize recent studies mainly in rodents indicating that protein phosphorylation, (...) especially at the synapses, could be the molecular entity associated with sleep need. Genetic studies in rodents have identified a set of kinases that promote sleep. The activity of sleep-promoting kinases appears to be elevated during the awake phase and in sleep deprivation. Furthermore, the proteomic analysis demonstrated that the phosphorylation status of synaptic protein is controlled by the sleep-wake cycle. Therefore, a plausible scenario may be that the awake-dependent activation of kinases modifies the phosphorylation status of synaptic proteins to promote sleep. We also discuss the possible importance of multisite phosphorylation on macromolecular protein complexes to achieve the slow dynamics and physiological functions of sleep in mammals. (shrink)

This paper draws on work in the sciences of the mind to cast doubt on some assumptions that have often been made in the study of self-control. Contra a long, Aristotelian tradition, recent evidence suggests that highly self-controlled individuals do not have a trait very similar to continence: they experience relatively few desires that conflict with their evaluative judgments and are not especially good at directly and effortfully inhibiting such desires. Similarly, several recent studies have failed to support the (...) view that self-control capacities are constituted, at least in part, by excellent inhibitory executive function ability. I propose an alternative “indirect harmony” hypothesis about trait self-control. According to this hypothesis, if there is a character trait of being highly self-controlled, it consists in motivational harmony within the mind that is brought about through the effective use of indirect resistance strategies that prevent occurrent motivational conflict from emerging in the first place. If this hypothesis is correct, high trait self-control in actual humans does not fit neatly into the traditional categories of either continence or temperance. I conclude by drawing out several implications this hypothesis has for future research on trait self-control and its relation to executive functions. (shrink)

Autonomous Agents addresses the related topics of self-control and individual autonomy. "Self-control" is defined as the opposite of akrasia-weakness of will. The study of self-control seeks to understand the concept of its own terms, followed by an examination of its bearing on one's actions, beliefs, emotions, and personal values. It goes on to consider how a proper understanding of self-control and its manifestations can shed light on personal autonomy and autonomous behaviour. Perspicuous, objective, and incisive throughout, (...) Alfred Mele makes a convincing case for the value of individual autonomy. (shrink)

The Shape of Agency offers interlinked explanations of the basic building blocks of agency, as well as its exemplary instances. The first part offers accounts of a collection of related phenomena that have long troubled philosophers of action: control over behaviour, non-deviant causation, and intentional action. These accounts build on earlier work in the causalist tradition, and undermine the claims made by many that causalism cannot offer a satisfying account of non-deviant causation, and therefore fails as an account of (...) intentional action. The second part turns to modes of agentive excellence—ways that agents display quality of form—providing a novel account of skill, including an account of the ways that agents display more or less skill. Shepherd discusses the role of knowledge in skill, and concludes that while knowledge is often important, it is inessential. This leads to a discussion of the way that knowledge of action and knowledge of how to act informs action execution. Knowledgeable action includes a unique epistemic underpinning: in knowledgeable action, the agent has authoritative knowledge of what she is doing and how she is doing it when and because she is poised to control her action by way of practical reasoning. (shrink)

El trabajo cuestiona la tesis según la cual durante los siglos XVI y XVIII funcionó en la Hispanoamérica Virreinal un régimen autoritario y extractivo; aporta evidencia de que, por el contrario, el orden virreinal o indiano funcionó según ideas e instituciones jurídicas que, en su contexto histórico, permitieron limitar el poder de las autoridades reales y de sus representantes; y argumenta por qué no se justificaba ni benefició a los ciudadanos de las nuevas Repúblicas romper de raíz con esas instituciones (...) jurídicas para adoptar un derecho público ajeno como el derecho administrativo francés. (shrink)

Participants watched themselves in a mirror while another person behind them, hidden from view, extended hands forward on each side where participants’ hands would normally appear. The hands performed a series of movements. When participants could hear instructions previewing each movement, they reported an enhanced feeling of controlling the hands. Hearing instructions for the movements also enhanced skin conductance responses when a rubber band was snapped on the other’s wrist after the movements. Such vicarious agency was not felt when the (...) instructions followed the movements, and participants’ own covert movement mimicry was not essential to the influence of previews on reported control. (shrink)

A neo-Aristotelian approach to self-control has dominated both philosophy and the sciences of the mind. This approach endorses three key theses: that self-control is a form of self-regulation aimed at desires that conflict with one’s evaluative judgments, that high trait self-control is continence, which is distinguished from temperance by motivational conflict, and that self-control is broad, in that such resistance can be not only direct but also indirect. There is an obvious tension between and. I argue (...) that the equally obvious resolution of this tension—allowing that self-control does not require occurrent conflicting desires but can instead be aimed at foreseeable conflicting desires—reveals a surprisingly unnoticed tension between and. To resolve this tension, we are forced to either deny that high trait self-control is continence or deny that self-control is broad. If self-control is narrow, recent empirical evidence suggests that it may not be a good candidate for a human excellence concerning self-regulation. Thus, if we want to make room for such an excellence, we may need to deny that high trait self-control is continence. However we resolve these tensions, the Aristotelian status quo regarding self-control cannot stand. (shrink)

In this paper, in line with the general framework of value-sensitive design, we aim to operationalize the general concept of “Meaningful Human Control” in order to pave the way for its translation into more specific design requirements. In particular, we focus on the operationalization of the first of the two conditions investigated: the so-called ‘tracking’ condition. Our investigation is led in relation to one specific subcase of automated system: dual-mode driving systems. First, we connect and compare meaningful human (...) class='Hi'>control with a concept of control very popular in engineering and traffic psychology, and we explain to what extent tracking resembles and differs from it. This will help clarifying the extent to which the idea of meaningful human control is connected to, but also goes beyond, current notions of control in engineering and psychology. Second, we take the systematic analysis of practical reasoning as traditionally presented in the philosophy of human action and we adapt it to offer a general framework where different types of reasons and agents are identified according to their relation to an automated system’s behaviour. This framework is meant to help explaining what reasons and what agents play a role in controlling a given system, thereby enabling policy makers to produce usable guidelines and engineers to design systems that properly respond to selected human reasons. In the final part, we discuss a practical example of how our framework could be employed in designing automated driving systems. (shrink)

Common-sense folk psychology and mainstream philosophy of action agree about decisions: these are under an agent's direct control, and are thus intentional actions for which agents can be held responsible. I begin this paper by presenting a problem for this view. In short, since the content of the motivational attitudes that drive deliberation and decision remains open-ended until the moment of decision, it is unclear how agents can be thought to exercise control over what they decide at the (...) moment of deciding. I note that this problem might motivate a non-actional view of deciding?a view that decisions are not actions, but are instead passive events of intention acquisition. For without an understanding of how an agent might exercise control over what is decided at the moment of deciding, we lack a good reason for maintaining commitment to an actional view of deciding. However, I then offer the required account of how agents exercise control over decisions at the moment of deciding. Crucial to this account is an understanding of the relation of practical deliberation to deciding, an understanding of skilled deliberative activity, and the role of attention in the mental action of deciding. (shrink)

This paper discusses the possibility of autonomy in our epistemic lives, and the importance of the concept of the first person in weathering fluctuations in our epistemic perspective over time.

Although popular, control accounts of privacy suffer from various counterexamples. In this article, it is argued that two such counterexamples—while individually resolvable—can be combined to yield a dilemma for control accounts of privacy. Furthermore, it is argued that it is implausible that control accounts of privacy can defend against this dilemma. Thus, it is concluded that we ought not define privacy in terms of control. Lastly, it is argued that since the concept of privacy is the (...) object of the right to privacy if the former cannot be defined in terms of control, neither can the latter. (shrink)

The now growing literature on the content and sources of the phenomenology of first-person agency highlights the multi-faceted character of the phenomenology of agency and makes it clear that the experience of agency includes many other experiences as components. This paper examines the possible relations between these components of our experience of acting and the processes involved in action specification and action control. After a brief discussion of our awareness of our goals and means of action, it will focus (...) on the sense of agency for a given action, understood as the sense the agent has that he or she is the author of that action. I argue that the sense of agency can be analyzed as a compound of more basic experiences, including the experience of intentional causation, the sense of initiation and the sense of control. I further argue that the sense of control may itself be analysed into a number of more specific, partially dissociable experiences. (shrink)

The last decade has witnessed the mass distribution and adoption of smart home systems and devices powered by artificial intelligence systems ranging from household appliances like fridges and toasters to more background systems such as air and water quality controllers. The pervasiveness of these sociotechnical systems makes analyzing their ethical implications necessary during the design phases of these devices to ensure not only sociotechnical resilience, but to design them for human values in mind and thus preserve meaningful human control (...) over them. This paper engages in a conceptual investigations of how meaningful human control over smart home devices can be attained through design. The value sensitive design (VSD) approach is proposed as a way of attaining this level of control. In the proposed framework, values are identified and defined, stakeholder groups are investigated and brought into the design process and the technical constraints of the technologies in question are considered. The paper concludes with some initial examples that illustrate a more adoptable way forward for both ethicists and engineers of smart home devices. (shrink)

This paper seeks to analyse an under-discussed kind of self-control, namely the control of thoughts and sensations. I distinguish first-order control from second-order control and argue that their central forms are intentional concentration and intentional mindfulness respectively. These correspond to two forms of meditation, concentration meditation and mindfulness meditation, which have been regarded as central both in the traditions in which the practices arose and in the scientific literature on meditation. I analyse them in terms of (...) their characteristic intentions, distinguish them from concentration and mindfulness in general, and examine the relations between them. Concentration involves keeping the mind focused on a single object, while mindfulness requires noticing whatever mental states occupy the focus of one’s consciousness. In the course of the investigation I examine the role of phenomenology and volition in the activity of meditating, and how they change as meditative capacities develop. (shrink)

The core of Zimmerman’s picture posits an inverse correlation between an action’s automaticity and belief’s role in the action’s execution. This proposal faces serious problems. First, high-attention, high-control actions don’t seem to heighten awareness of one’s beliefs. Second, low-attention, low-control actions are caused by the same states at play when executing high-attention, high-control actions, in which case there is no ontological difference in the states involved in these behaviors. Third, on Zimmerman’s view it is unclear what it (...) is for a state to be involved in behaviors at all, as the basic realist response—that beliefs cause behavior—is unavailable to a Zimmerman-style pragmatist. Lastly, if Zimmerman's view were right and low-level behaviors weren't caused by beliefs, then we should turn our attention to those states instead, as most of our behavior isn’t executed under conditions of high control and attention. (shrink)

In this paper, I solve a puzzle generated by three conflicting claims about the relationship between faith, belief, and control: according to the Identity Thesis, faith is a type of belief, and according to Fideistic Voluntarism, we sometimes have control over whether or not we have faith, but according to Doxastic Involuntarism, we never have control over what we believe. To solve the puzzle, I argue that the Identity Thesis is true, but that either Fideistic Voluntarism or (...) Doxastic Voluntarism is false, depending on how we understand "control." I distinguish two notions of control: direct intention-based control and indirect reflective control. I argue that though we have direct intention-based control over neither belief nor faith, we have indirect reflective control over each of them. Moreover, indirect reflective control helps explain how we can be held accountable for each. (shrink)

Believing in free will may arise from a biological need for control. People induced to disbelieve in free will show impulsive and antisocial tendencies, suggesting a reduction of the willingness to exert self-control. We investigated whether undermining free will affects two aspects of self-control: intentional inhibition and perceived self-control. We exposed participants either to anti-free will or to neutral messages. The two groups then performed a task that required self-control to inhibit a prepotent response. No-free (...) will participants showed less intentional inhibitions than controls, suggesting a reduction of self-control. We assessed perceived self-control by asking participants whether the response resulted from a deliberate intention or from an impulsive reaction. Perceived self-control was lower in the no-free will group than in control group. Our findings show that undermining free will can degrade self-control and provide insights into how disbelieving in free will leads to antisocial tendencies. (shrink)

This paper makes the case for arms control regimes to govern the development and deployment of autonomous weapon systems and long range uninhabited aerial vehicles.

Bovine tuberculosis is the most economically important animal health policy issue in Britain. The problem of what to do about badgers has plagued successive governments since a dead badger was discovered with bovine TB in 1971. Successive Labour governments oversaw the Randomised Badger Culling Trial from 1998 to 2006. Despite the RBCT recommendation against culling, the 2010–2015 Coalition government implemented pilot badger culls. This paper provides an account of the evolution of bovine TB and badger control policy, focusing on (...) the 1997–2010 Labour, the 2010–2015 Coalition and the 2015-present Conservative governments. Interviews with bovine TB policy stakeholders supplement discussion of the development of bovine TB policy. The paper discusses the science and politics of bovine TB policy, in which there are different badger control policies in Westminster, Welsh and Scottish governments. Badger control is a highly polarised issue, and the Coalition and Conservative governments have been heavily criticised for a culling policy opposed by the independent scientific community. Recent governments have defended badger culling on the basis of veterinary advice and experience in countries such as New Zealand. The paper concludes with two key recommendations to inform controversial animal health and welfare policy issues such as bovine TB. First, mandatory Animal Welfare Impact Assessment provides objective data on the impacts of policy options on cows and badgers. Second, robust ethical analysis, conducted by independent experts using established moral frameworks, should be applied to animal health and welfare issues for the benefit of decision makers. (shrink)

In a democracy, citizens should have some control over how they are governed. If they do not participate directly in making policy, they ought to maintain control over the public officials who design policy on their behalf. Rule by Multiple Majorities develops a novel theory of popular control: an account of what it is, why democracy's promise of popular control is compatible with what we know about actual democracies, and why it matters. While social choice theory (...) suggests there is no such thing as a 'popular will' in societies with at least minimal diversity of opinion, the author argues that multiple, overlapping majorities can nonetheless have control, at the same time. After resolving this conceptual puzzle, the author explains why popular control is a realistic and compelling ideal for democracies, notwithstanding voters' low levels of information and other shortcomings. (shrink)