Jörg-Peter Ewert

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Jörg-Peter Ewert 1973. Historical test arrangement for deriving the responses of a neuron from the brain of a common toad to prey
Jörg-Peter Ewert 2010

Jörg-Peter Ewert (born April 26, 1938 in the Free City of Danzig ) is a German neurophysiologist (research area neuroethology ). From 1973 to 2006 he worked as a full professor in the natural sciences department (holder of the chair for zoology / physiology) at the University of Kassel .

Career

Jörg-Peter Ewert studied biology, chemistry and geography at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen from 1958 to 1965 . In 1965 he was in zoology at the behavior physiologist George Birukow Dr. rer. nat. PhD . Dissertation topic: The influence of peripheral sensory organs and the central nervous system on the willingness to respond to the directional movement of the common toad . He later passed the state examination for teaching at grammar schools.

From 1966 he was a scientific assistant at the Zoological Institute of the Technical University of Darmstadt , first with the developmental physiologist Wolfgang Luther , then with the sensory physiologist Hubert Markl . In 1968 he received an invitation from the neurophysiologist Otto-Joachim Grüsser to the Physiological Institute of the Free University of Berlin . He used the methodological knowledge acquired there to derive neurons from the visual system of the common toad. In 1969 he received his habilitation and the Venia Legendi for zoology (focus on physiology ).

During a research stay in 1970/71 he worked as a Fellow of the Foundations' Fund for Research in Psychiatry with the neuropsychologist David J. Ingle at the McLean Hospital Harvard Medical School in Belmont, Mass, USA.

In 1971/72 he was a university professor at the Zoological Institute of the TU Darmstadt.

In 1973 Ewert was appointed to the H4 professorship (chair) for zoology / physiology at the University of Kassel . There he formed the neuroethology working group . During the founding phase of the university, he played a key role in the development of the natural sciences and in the structuring of the reformed biology courses.

In 1983 he was appointed to the professorship of Zoology / Physiology at the University of Vienna . However, he opted for the University of Kassel and worked there until his retirement in 2006.

From 2000 to 2004, Ewert, as a representative of the European Science Foundation (ESF), headed an expert group of the Council of Europe . The task of the “Group of Experts on Amphibians and Reptiles” consisted in the revision of Appendix A to the European Convention for the Protection of Vertebrate Animals used for Experimental and other Scientific Purposes ETS_123 .

Memberships

For his scientific merits in the field of neuroethological research on amphibians, Ewert was accepted as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

In August 1981, Ewert, as director of the NATO-Advanced Study Institute (NATO-ASI), organized the international congress Advances in Vertebrate Neuroethology at the University of Kassel (venue: Schlösschen Schönburg, Hofgeismar). The International Society for Neuroethology (ISN) was founded on the occasion of this congress . Ewert was a member of the ISN Steering Committee.

Research focus on neuroethology

Jörg-Peter Ewert is one of the pioneers in neuroethology . Since 1963 he has been researching the neurophysiological basics of visually controlled behavior in amphibians with special attention to the common toad . The focus is on the question - asked by Nikolaas Tinbergen at the time - about neural correlates of the classical ethological concepts of key stimulus and trigger mechanism . Through his research results, he has neurophysiologically substantiated these concepts, case-by-case for the visual triggering of prey in common toads, and expanded them in terms of content. As a result, Hanna-Maria Zippelius' general criticism of these concepts ("The measured theory") was partially corrected.

Ewert has specified the term key stimulus on a case-by-case basis. The “key” does not refer to a specific stimulus characteristic, but to an algorithm which, by weighting critical characteristic components, reveals the prey category and differentiates it from non-prey. The limit is u. a. depends on the motivation to catch the prey . Through their research results, Ewert and colleagues have also re-examined the concept of the trigger mechanism: The species-specific prey recognition of the common toad can be modified through learning. After deactivation of a brain structure involved in learning (homologous to the hippocampus ), the original prey recognition comes into play again. As a result, there are neuron circuits in the toad brain that translate signals (key stimuli) into appropriate behavioral patterns and those that - with the participation of certain telencephalic structures - modulate this translation, e.g. B. modify.

Ewert's scientific successes include the discovery of prey-selective neurons in the roof of the midbrain of the common toad. He was able to prove that the feature-weighting process - and thus the above-mentioned algorithm - is based on certain interactions between different structures of the forebrain and the roof of the midbrain. The axons of the prey-selective neurons could be traced to the motor centers of the posterior brain . Accordingly, a trigger mechanism is a sensorimotor interface that - like the Janus head - looks in two directions, to the sensor and motor functions . On the one hand, it is used for signal detection and signal location, and on the other hand, it controls the appropriate behavioral reaction. According to Ewert, the neural correlate is a combination of feature-sensitive neurons leading to motor functions (concept of the sensorimotor code).

The modeling of central nervous processes on which object recognition in toads is based was carried out in contact with Werner von Seelen , Francisco Cervantes-Pérez, Michael A. Arbib and Ann Reddipogu. Artificial neural networks based on the principles of the toad brain enabled access to robotics in the experiment platform “Sorting conveyor belt objects with robotic gripper arm” in cooperation with Helge Ritter and Friedrich Pfeiffer in the BMBF joint project SEKON.

In 1976 Ewert wrote the first book on Neuro-Ethology: Introduction to the Neurophysiological Basics of Behavior , which later appeared in English, Japanese and Chinese editions. The film Image Processing in the Visual System of the Common Toad - Behavior, Brain Function, Artificial Neural Network , produced by Ewert and the Institute for Scientific Film (IWF) , received an award in 1994: “Accredited by IAMS”, International Association for Media in Science. Ewert has been a member of the editorial board of Adaptive Behavior magazine - Animal, Animats, Software Agents, Robots, Adaptive Systems - since 1992 .

The research results obtained on common toads belong to model examples in various textbooks.

Publications

Textbooks

  • J.-P. Ewert: Neuro-Ethology: Introduction to the neurophysiological basics of behavior . Heidelberger Taschenbücher, Springer, Heidelberg 1976, ISBN 3-540-07773-1 . J.-P. Ewert: Neuroethology . Springer, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-540-09790-2 . 1983 Japanese Edn. (Baifukan, Tokyo); 1986 Chinese Edn. (Beijing Scientific Press, Beijing)
  • J.-P. Ewert, RR Capranica, DJ Ingle (Eds.): Advances in Vertebrate Neuroethology . Plenum, New York 1983, ISBN 0-306-41197-0
  • J.-P. Ewert: Neurobiology of Behavior. Brief textbook for psychologists, physicians and biologists . Huber-Verlag, Bern 1998, ISBN 3-456-82994-9

Contributions to specialist books

  • The neural basis of visually guided behavior . In: R. Held, W. Richards (eds.): Recent Progress in Perception . Readings from Scientific American. Freeman, San Francisco 1974, pp. 96-104
  • Tectal mechanisms that underlie prey-catching and avoidance behaviors in toads . In: H. Vanegas (Ed.): Comparative Neurology of the Optic Tectum . Plenum, New York 1984, pp. 247-416
  • with TW Beneke, E. Schürg-Pfeiffer, WW Schwippert and A. Weerasuriya: Sensorimotor processes that underlie feeding behavior in tetrapods . In: VL Bels, M. Chardon, P. Vandewalle (Eds.): Advances in Comparative & Environmental Physiology, Vol. 18: Biomechanics of Feeding in Vertebrates . Springer, Berlin 1994, pp. 119-162
  • Motion perception shapes the visual world of amphibians . In: FR Prete (Ed.): Complex Worlds from Simpler Nervous Systems . MIT Press, Cambridge MA 2004, pp. 117-160

Scientific films

  • Perception of shape in the common toad . IWF Wissen und Medien gGmbH, Göttingen 1982, film 16 mm, S-VHS-Video, DVD-Video. I) Innate recognition of prey, No. C 1430. II) Modification of recognition of prey through learning, No. C 1431. III) Neuroethological analysis of innate recognition of prey, No. C 1432.
  • Image processing in the common toad's visual system - behavior, brain function, artificial neural network . IWF 1993. German version: Image Processing in the Visual System of the Common Toad - Behavior, Brain Function, Artificial Neuronal Net . (Accompanying publication: IWF Publ. Wiss. Film, Biol. 22 (1995) pp. 73–150.) Film no. C 1805, S-VHS-Video, DVD- Video .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Document prepared by the Expert Group Amphibians and Reptiles for the Council of Europe ( PDF ( Memento of January 3, 2007 in the Internet Archive ))
  2. ↑ J.-P. Ewert: Advances in Vertebrate Neuroethology . In: Trends Neurosci. 5, 1982, pp. 141-143
  3. ↑ Video
  4. ↑ Research results summarized and literature references see joerg-peter-ewert.de
  5. ↑ J.-P. Ewert: Tinbergen's concept of gestalt perception for triggering behavior through key stimuli - evidence from an ethological and neuroethological point of view . In: GH Neumann, KH Scharf (ed.): Comparative behavioral biology - current state of research (2nd edition). Aulis-Verlag Deubner, Cologne 1999, pp. 197-227
  6. ↑ S. Wachowitz, J.-P. Ewert: A key by which the toad's visual system gets access to the domain of price . In: Physiol. Behav. , 60 (3), 1996, pp. 877-887
  7. ↑ J.-P. Ewert, AW Dinges, T. Finkenstädt: Species-universal stimulus responses, modified through conditioning, re-appear after telencephalic lesions in toads . In: Naturwissenschaften , 81, 1994, pp. 317-320
  8. ↑ J.-P. Ewert, WW Schwippert: Modulation of visual perception and action by forebrain structures and their interactions in amphibians . In: ED Levin (Ed.): Neurotransmitter Interactions and Cognitive Function . Birkhäuser, 2006, pp. 99-136
  9. ↑ J.-P. Ewert: Neural correlates of key stimulus and releasing mechanism . In: Trends Neurosci. , Vol. 20 (8), 1997, pp. 332-339, PMID 9246720
  10. ↑ S. Fingerling, J.-P. Ewert, R. Menzel, F. Pfeiffer: From the toad to a robot - implementation of neurobiological principles of object discrimination in neural engineering . In: Naturwissenschaften , Volume 80, 1993, pp. 321-324
  11. ^ TJ Carew: Behavioral Neurobiology . ( Memento of October 6, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Sinauer, Sunderland 2000, pp. 94–124
  12. ^ GKH Zupanc: Behavioral Neurobiology. An integrative approach . Oxford 2004, pp. 122-132
  13. ^ MA Arbib: The Metaphorical Brain 2. Neural Networks and Beyond . Wiley, 1998, pp. 204-222
personal data
SURNAME Ewert, Jörg-Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German neurophysiologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Danzig