Abstract
Reflexes, central pattern generators, fixed action patterns and its inverse form, the innate releasing mechanism provided the successful framework of neuroethology in the past decades. Adaptive reflexes and innate releasing mechanism, being at least for certain intervals sensitive to modification, are the logical successors. It seems as if everything in neuroethology can be explained by “modification of reflexes”. However, if an hypothesis cannot be disproved, it is no longer a scientific hypothesis. Combining Maturana’s theory of autopoietic systems with Eigen’s concept of molecular evolution, allows to specify neurophysiological questions which can be approached experimentally: e.g., quantitative description of noise and its neural regulation, search for neural representations of homeostasis or of functional gradients or identification of self-organizing hot spots within the central nervous system.
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