What is neuroethology?

[ by Carl Hopkins] “Neuroethology is the biological approach to the study of the neural basis of behavior. Thus, the focus is on the role of the nervous system in behavior, but the perspective is that which is called ‘ethological’. The ethological approach emphasizes the causation, the development, the evolution, and the function of behavior and neuroethologists seek to understand this in terms of neural circuits. Neuroethology is the study of natural behavior, which, in the older scientific literature, was called “instinctive behavior” or “innate behavior”. Neuroethologists base their studies on behavioral studies that often are done in the field on the animal’s own turf.”