Where do animal instincts come from

What is instinct? Are animals "born" with an "intuition" on how to do things? If so how? I read a book once that outlined how synapse and myelination work in the brain. Short explanation is, the more often you do an action, the more the "wires" in your brain, that are used to control that action, are insulated. This makes it so there is less loss of "electricity" in the circuit making it more efficient, and the most likely path for your brain to fire to get something right. This is how you "learn" to do something. But I suspect that animals like colts are born and their neural pathways related to walking/running are either already very well myelinated or their brain is primed to make them so at an expedited rate in comparison to other connections, thus you have what appears to be a "magic" event where they just know how to walk right away.

I read a book once that outlined how synapse and myelination work in the brain. Short explanation is, the more often you do an action, the more the "wires" in your brain, that are used to control that action, are insulated. This makes it so there is less loss of "electricity" in the circuit making it more efficient, and the most likely path for your brain to fire to get something right. This is how you "learn" to do something. But I suspect that animals like colts are born and their neural pathways related to walking/running are either already very well myelinated or their brain is primed to make them so at an expedited rate in comparison to other connections, thus you have what appears to be a "magic" event where they just know how to walk right away.

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