LOPEZ RIQUELME, GERMAN OCTAVIO

I am a neuroethologist. My principal interest is social cognition and social behavior. The main mental abilities of human beings have evolved from social evolution and co-evolution between genes and culture. Homo sapiens is a highly social species, and social interactions are determinants of human psychology. To understand human behavior is necessary an integrative and evolutionary approach from a social perspective. However, social experiments are impossible in human societies. On the other hand, social insects are excellent models for neuroscience and behavioral sciences. Although phylogenetically distant, they can form scocieties that rival ours in complexity, internal cohesion and organization. Besides, experimental manipulation of all levels involved, from genes to whole societies, is possible in them. My main interest is to understand how societies and social brains work, develope and evolve, and how social brains face social stimuli and conflicts in societies such as kin selection, kin recognition, division of labour, etc. My work has involved techniques of neurophysiology, functional morphology and behavior in social insects. I have focused mainly on the olfactory sensory encoding and processing of information in the higher brain centers of social insects called Mushroom Bodies in order to establish the structure and function of social brains and how they give meaning to social information.