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Laterality in locomotory-rotational and social behaviour of mammals
Kunclová, Kristýna ; Špinka, Marek (advisor) ; Vlček, Kamil (referee)
Lateralization of brain structures manifesting behavioral laterality is a known phenomenon among vertebrates, and their equivalents are also found in invertebrates. In this paper, I will review motor laterality in mammals, which includes mainly preferential use of one limb/paw (Handedness) and spatial preferences in rotational behavior. In this work, I will summarize laterality of rotational behavior, as the most important part of my paper, within the larger scope of motor laterality. I will offer some explanations of laterality changes depending on the surrounding circumstances, and the emotional setting of individuals and present examples of laterality at the individual and population levels in mammals. Keywords: Lateralization, Motor laterality, rotational/turning asymmetries, Handedness, Forelimb preference, Individual laterality, Population laterality, Mammals
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Spatial memory in humans and its disorders: From animal models towards schizophrenia
Fajnerová, Iveta ; Vlček, Kamil (advisor) ; Rokyta, Richard (referee) ; Jiruška, Přemysl (referee)
Spatial memory is often studied using spatial tasks originally developed for animals, such as the Morris water maze and the Carousel maze tasks. Both tasks have an important role in the process of identification of brain areas crucial for spatial memory, and also in pharmacological research of animal models of neuropsychiatric diseases. In recent years considerable attention has been devoted to the research and treatment of cognitive impairment in schizophrenia. Comparative research addressing cognitive abilities of both animals and patients in similar tasks, could therefore lead to verification of the predictive and face validity of animal models of this complex disorder. The aim of this study was to create virtual analogues of these tasks, which would allow this comparative approach. This thesis first describes the experiment testing the performance of an animal model of schizophrenia induced by the application of dizocilpine (MK-801) in reversal version of both mentioned spatial tasks, in order to assess mental flexibility and learning abilities affected in schizophrenia. Other two experiments present the findings of the two virtual analogues tested in the first episode of schizophrenia patients. Our results confirm the presence of deficits in spatial memory and mental flexibility, functions dependent on...
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Episodic-like memory changes during aging
Čechová, Kateřina ; Vlček, Kamil (advisor) ; Stehlík, Luděk (referee)
The Diploma thesis is concerned with the human episodic-like memory and its changes during the course of healthy ageing. Episodic memory represents a memory of specific events and their spatiotemporal relations, involving conscious retrieval and mental time travel. As a testable analogy in animals, a concept of episodic-like memory has been suggested and defined as a memory of spatiotemporal location of a certain event in the past ("what-where-when"). Firstly, we focused on a methodological comparison of standard psychological tests of episodic memory and a novel non-verbal computer-based Episodic-Like Memory Test (EMT) with several variants of varying difficulty, capable of discerning the memory for pictures, their sequence and position (Vlček et al., 2009). The second goal of our study was to demonstrate the applicability of the concept of episodic-like memory ("what- where-when") as a model in the testing of human episodic memory. Compared with other tests of episodic memory, EMT test does not depend on the verbalization of content. Contrasting the results obtained from EMT and other standard tests was, therefore, of interest. The results from the EMT test were compared across three age cohorts (N = 58; young, middle-aged, aged) of healthy volunteers. In the spatial domain of episodic-like...
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Human spatial navigation strategies in virtual environments
Hejtmánek, Lukáš ; Vlček, Kamil (advisor) ; Špinka, Marek (referee)
This master thesis presents an overview of psychological and neurological the- ories and research of human navigation, how it works, what systems it con- sists of and what external information it requires to operate. I present several experiments administered in virtual environment which tested the process of accessing two discrete spatial reference frames: allocentric landmark-centred and object-centred. The research tries to answer whether these reference frames interface during the learning phase and whether their access is sim- ultaneous or sequential. Data from my experiment are partially concordant with previous research and imply that the two representations exist inde- pendent of each other. Subjects tend to manifest longer reaction times during the spatial task when they need to change the reference frames in order to provide a correct answer. But the data also suggest that the switch from the object-centred reference frame does not occur prior to the task itself, which is conflicting with previous studies. Possible explanations are discussed. keywords: human navigation, switching, environmental representations, object- centred reference frame, virtual reality 1
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Sequential analysis of play behaviour in Hanuman langurs (Semnopithecus entellus)
Palečková, Marie ; Špinka, Marek (advisor) ; Vlček, Kamil (referee)
Social play is a very variable behaviour which includes, among others, patterns used in other functional contexts (e.g. predatory, aggressive or sexual behaviour). These patterns carry a risk of potential escalation of the play into an agonistic conflict or, at least, the risk of terminating the play interaction. Therefore, many species have evolved signals to establish a playful context. Some of the play signals could have specific metacommunicative function, i.e. to modify the meaning of actions borrowed from other contexts which immediately preceded or followed the play signal. The aim of this study was to use the sequential analysis of play behaviour in Hanuman langurs (Semnopithecus entellus) to test if some of the patterns in the play sequence serve as play signals with a metacommunicative function. I have tested whether the occurrence of patterns with potential play signal function is non- random and if there is a sequential association with actions borrowed from aggressive contexts. The results showed that the frequently reported play signal called play face occurred with almost two-times higher probability immediately before or immediately after aggressive patterns in play sequence, thus serving its metacommunnicative function. Other tested patterns did not show significant association with...
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Maternal investment and reproductive strategy in domestic horses
Komárková, Martina ; Bartošová, Jitka (advisor) ; Šumbera, Radim (referee) ; Vlček, Kamil (referee)
The aim of my doctoral thesis is the detailed study of the behavioural and sociobiological principles associated with the period of lactation. Suckling data covering almost 80 foals of domestic horse (Equus caballus) was obtained within four years of observation in the National Stud in Kladruby nad Labem, Czech Republic. The data were evaluated together with the reproductive history of the mothers, their agonistic interactions and following analysis of the dominance position of subadult foals. The first study describes longer suckling (greater maternal care) in dominant mares compared to submissive ones. Dominant mares are also less disturbed during nursing, whereas they terminated the nursing of submissive mares more often. A possible competitive advantage for the offspring of dominant mares may arise from such behaviour. The second paper enlightens the reproductive strategy of mares facing double maternal investment; suckling of the foal and pregnancy at the same time. I found out, contrary to the expectations, that the pregnant mares neither suckled their foals less nor terminated more suckling compared to non-pregnant herdmates. They may try to compensate their suckling foal with the perspective of its early weaning due to ongoing pregnancy. In the third and fourth manuscript I studied, how...
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Arachnophobia and the cause of fear of spiders
Říha, Roman ; Dolejš, Petr (advisor) ; Vlček, Kamil (referee)
Fear of spiders is largely widespread, and in some cases may even grow into a phobia. Negative attitude towards spiders can be found already in the mythology of some peoples. This attitude is often in the Western culture. It is interesting that this fear persists even though there are very few spiders which are able to endanger human life. There are more possible causes of arachnophobia, including classical conditioning, information transmission and impact of disgust emotions. Right the disgust seems to be the probable explanation of spider phobia. Relevance fear is documented by a list of dangerous spiders to humans. Some spiders are in fact able to endanger human health by toxins contained in their venom. Basic questions to deal with are validity of human fear of spiders and possible causes of this negative relationship.
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Perception of space in virtual reality environments
Fajnerová, Iveta ; Vlček, Kamil (advisor) ; Vavrečka, Michal (referee)
This thesis attempts to analyze spatial perception for navigation in a virtual arena and to cover neuronal basics of distance estimation. For this purpose, we created a virtual version of Hidden goal task which is an analogy to Morris water maze. The thesis presents results of the experiment with removing orientation cues in a circular arena. The aim of the experiment was to determine, if the assumption of Cognitive mapping theory about orientation cues equivalence is valid for our arena. Experiment outcome indicates that the accuracy of goal position estimation is not only influenced by the number of cues but also by the individual hierarchy of the cues. The hierarchy emerges from the distance of the cue from the goal, although in some cases it can be affected by an outstanding identity of the particular cue. These findings are a basis for the experiment utilizing the functional magnetic resonance method to determine neuronal basics for estimating distances in virtual arena in both the egocentric and allocentric reference frame. Results support the findings of the cited papers about the participation of occipital and parietal lobe in estimating object distance in space. Comparison of the two reference frames showed that whereas the egocentric estimation is related to activity in premotor cortex,...
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Abstract tasks in birds - spatial vs non-spatial tasks
Janská, Iveta ; Landová, Eva (advisor) ; Vlček, Kamil (referee)
The aim of this thesis is to compare spatial cognitive tasks (radial maze and analogs, geometry and features) and non-spatial abstract cognitive task (concept formation and categorization, transitive inference) in birds. Because each of tasks have different testing methods they are compared according to method types in separate thematic groups, which are discussed each other. The extension of this thesis on theories derived from human psychology such as self-recognition, episodic-like memory, and theory of mind.
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