On the Growth and Form of Animal Behavior - in Memory of Ilan Golan (1939-2024)

Prof. Ilan Golani passed away from Coronavirus infection at the age of 83, while actively contributing as an author and editor to this original Research Topic. Even during his final days, he endeavored to articulate the insights formed throughout his illustrious scientific career in a manner that was at once rigorous, methodologically innovative, and communicative. With the assistance of Frontiers, we—his colleagues, students, and friends—have further developed this research topic in his memory.



A central theme of Prof. Ilan Golani’s work was the call for a shift from the prevailing focus on neural mechanisms and isolated behavioral patterns, toward a deeper investigation of form, growth, and morphogenesis across multiple temporal and biological scales. He sought to adapt insights from comparative anatomy and evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) to the study of behavior, emphasizing principles such as homology, modularity, and collinearity as they naturally emerge from behavioral analysis.



This Research Topic invites contributions that:



- Integrate the methodology of comparative developmental anatomy for studying the structure and generative rules of behavior,

- Explore behavioral morphogenesis and the invariant architectural building blocks (“primitives,” modules, and bauplans) underlying movement-based behavior across vertebrates and arthropods,

- Apply geometrization and abstraction to movement and its sequential organization for comparative insights, and/or

- Embrace an organismic, holistic approach to behavioral research in Ilan Golani’s tradition.



We encourage studies that address challenges in describing the architecture of movement, including issues of serial connectivity and the dynamics of support, as well as those examining parallels with genetic and anatomical modularity.



All manuscripts focusing on behavioral aspects may be submitted to the Individual and Social Behaviors section of Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, those focused on neurodevelopment to Frontiers in Neuroscience, and others falling within the scope of this topic to Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience.