Innate drives

Eventually his willingness for self-modification, necessary to win rapport with his world, is stronger than his desire for autonomy, were it not, civilization would not be possible. That we succeed in moulding him to respond to our criteria shows the innate drive for communion and the flexibility of a young mind, it doesn t prove an essential and sanctified rightness of our own constructs. 

This study is also responsible for developing the conceptualization that vertebrates can be divided into three groups according to the mode of operation of their brain (a) those that operate with innate drives only (the majority) (b) those with an ability to acquire drives (a minority) and (c) the group of one that operates almost exclusively with acquired drives (Homo sapiens sapiens). 

The neurochemical basis of both categories of drives - (a) the innate ones necessary for the survival of the individual and the species, and (b) the acquired ones for attaining an unlimited number of dispensable goals - is unknown. The mesencephalic mechanism that keeps the innate drives in action is presumably the less complicated part of the problem. The real crux of the issue seems to be the cortical mechanism that renders the acquisition of an unnatural urge possible. 

Innate Drives in the Service of a Limited Number of Indispensable (Vital) Goals... 

Some strains of laboratory rats lend themselves particularly well to the analysis of the formation of an acquired drive and the study of the basic role of an innate drive in the acquisition of an urge for an unnatural goal. 

In the most efficiently trained, best performing rats the acquired drive was so powerful that it suppressed even innate drives. When such a rat has been deprived of food for 48 h and then food was offered within the usual setup that contained the glass-cylinder, the rat looked for the glass cylinder and left the food untouched. Similarly, when a receptive female was offered to a sexually fully active glass-cylinder-seeking male rat in the usual setup, the male looked for the glass-cylinder and neglected the receptive female. 

In the case of innate drives enhancer regulation in the mesencephalon is responsible for both the formation of the subcortical active focus that maintains the enhanced orienting-searching reflex activity until the goal is reached and cortical active focus ( the cortical representation of the drive ). As natural conditions are always changing, even the goals determined by innate drives can be reached only with the participation of cortical neurons. The successful operation of an innate drive requires, namely, the continuous acquisition of proper chains of ECRs. 

Although any form of an acquired drive is rooted in one of the innate drives, as soon as the new drive develops and operates in an inextinguishable manner, the roots become unrecognizable. Watching a glass-cylinder-seeking rat in operation, one cannot recognize that escape from a hot plate was the foundation of this acquired drive. 

We never observed a phenomenon reminiscent of boredom in connection with innate drives, where the inexhaustible mesencephalic neurons keep the cortical neurons active. It therefore seems that tedious repetitions of... 

An acquired drive is always built on an inner drive but after it has been ultimately fixed, the innate drive cannot be recognized any more. It is impossible to recognize either in man or in a domesticated animal the origin of an acquired drive. 

---