The Neurobehaviorist Paradox: When Knowing More is Less

The stunning developments in molecular and cellular methodologies bring behavioral analyses of so called “model organisms”, ranging from worms to rodents, into the toolbox of every self-respecting biology laboratory. Yet in most cases, a dissonance is apparent between the depth of analyses of the molecular mechanisms on the one hand and that of the behavior on the other. To this date it is not rare to encounter reliance on a single behavioral measure as if it is a litmus test, evading the complexity underlying the behavior in real-life. Paradoxically, however, some major findings linking molecules to behavior found their way into the cannon of the scientific literature because the lack of detailed knowledge about the behavioral complexity allowed the investigators to reach their conclusions. Had the behavior of model organisms been known at the same resolution as that of the experimenter, the authors would have been much more reluctant to link identified molecular mechanisms to distinct attributes of normal and pathological behavior. I will discuss the tension between knowing too little and knowing too much about behavior, and illustrate how in the neuroscience, one might wish to adhere to that level of resolution of behavior that is just useful enough to allow productivity without sacrificing realism on the one hand but boldness on the other.