1 - Grooming, sequencing, and beyond: how it all began

Summary

Summary

This chapter has taken two distinctive but complementary approaches to mouse grooming. The first is based upon Frances Stilwell's intuitive perceptions in the 1970s of previously unappreciated order in grooming sequences. An important principle here is that early stages in research depend upon sensitivity to what our animals can show us. Premature narrowing of observational perspective can limit the richness of analytical questions that are initially hidden from view. In the second part of the chapter, John Fentress outlines some of the richness of subsequent research that sensitive descriptions have led up to. Mouse grooming has led to a host of studies in behavioral genetics, development, brain mechanisms, and motivational models including stress.

Introduction

This chapter is intentionally divided into two parts. The first part, by Frances Stilwell, outlines the discovery of rules underlying order in the rich patterning of mouse grooming. As Stilwell discovered in the early 1970s, there is indeed syntax, perhaps even a grammar, in these rodent movements. One of the lessons here is to look closely at rules of order in seemingly inconsequential action patterns of the animals around us. They are rich in their structure. Mouse grooming has led to a number of important insights about brain and behavior. Furthermore, Stilwell's comments are not only refreshingly personal, but also important as a picture of how research sometimes actually progresses. This reminds us of the insights early ethologists, such as N. Tinbergen, came up with by just watching.