IsisCB Explore

Thesis ID: CBB001567338

Capturing Complexity: Experimental Systems and Epistemic Scaffolds in Animal Behavior Genetics (2011)

Nelson, Nicole Christine (Author)

Cornell University
Hilgartner, Stephen

ISBN: 9781267257154

Publication Date: 2011
Edition Details: Advisor: Hilgartner, Stephen.
Physical Details: 310 pp.
Language: English

Outside Links

Academia.edu

Alcoholism Experiments and experimentation Behavioral sciences Psychology Animal behavior Animal genetics Laboratories Models and modeling in science Mental disorders and diseases Animal experimentation 20th century

This dissertation examines knowledge production practices in the field of animal behavior genetics. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at a laboratory at "Western University" that uses rodents to study the genetics of alcoholism and anxiety, I investigate how practitioners establish experimental systems to model human behavioral disorders in the laboratory and manage the excess of uncertainty that they associate with the "complexity" of behavior. To illuminate the dynamics of knowledge production in animal behavior genetics, I develop the metaphor of an "epistemic scaffold" to describe how practitioners establish and act on the conceptual foundations of particularmodels or tests.The image of a scaffold highlights two different processes taking place in the research community: the process of making specific links between the animal and the human using available data and theory, and the process of making more or less general claims about the utility of animal models and the applicability of animal behavior genetics findings. Methodological discussions about tests such as the elevated plus maze demonstrate how researchers negotiate about what counts as sound evidence for the connection of this test to human anxiety, and about whether researchers should claim that test models "anxiety" or only "anxiety-like behavior." The assumption that human behavioral disorders are likely to be "complex" animates many of these discussions about the practices and conceptual foundations of the field. I analyze how researchers stabilize particular representations of multi-faceted human behaviors such as binge drinking by developing new models, and show how some researchers use these models to highlight the role of environmental factors in behavior rather than solely "reducing" human behavior to genes. Different understandings of the "complexity" of human behavior are also associated with different expectations about the stability of animal behavior genetics experimental systems and how quickly knowledge will accumulate in the field. I demonstrate how practitioners attempt to manage expectations about what associations can be made between genes and behavior not only in the laboratory but also with other audiences in mind, such as funding agencies, policy makers, and the public.

...More

Description Cited in Dissertation Abstracts International-A 73/07(E), Jan 2013. Proquest Document ID: 969168609.

Citation URI

http://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001567338/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Ankeny, Rachel A.; Leonelli, Sabina; Nelson, Nicole C.; Ramsden, Edmund; (2014)
Making Organisms Model Human Behavior: Situated Models in North-American Alcohol Research, since 1950 (/isis/citation/CBB001420417/)

Book Nicole C. Nelson; (2018)
Model Behavior: Animal Experiments, Complexity, and the Genetics of Psychiatric Disorders (/isis/citation/CBB444510423/)

Chapter Schwerin, Alexander von; (2013)
From Agriculture to Genomics: The Animal Side of Human Genetics and the Organization of Model Organisms in the Longue Durée (/isis/citation/CBB001500056/)

Chapter Gray, Liz; (2014)
Body, Mind and Madness: Pain in Animals in Nineteenth-Century Comparative Psychology (/isis/citation/CBB001202329/)

Thesis Benjamín Alberto Schultz-Figueroa; (2018)
The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life (/isis/citation/CBB032544750/)

Article Kosmachevskaia, E. A.; Gromova, L. I.; (2011)
Tropics in the Subtropics: I. P. Pavlov and the Sukhumi Primate Station (/isis/citation/CBB001211392/)

Article Bowden, Gregory; (2014)
Disorders of Inattention and Hyperactivity: The Production of Responsible Subjects (/isis/citation/CBB001214383/)

Article Ramsden, Edmund; (2011)
From Rodent Utopia to Urban Hell: Population, Pathology, and the Crowded Rats of NIMH (/isis/citation/CBB001220017/)

Article Patnode, Stephen; (2007)
“Their Lack of Masculine Security and Aggression Was Obvious”: Gender and the Medicalization of Inebriety in the United States, 1930--50 (/isis/citation/CBB000900116/)

Article Wilson, David A. H.; (2002)
Experimental Animal Behaviour Studies: The Loss of Initiative in Britain 100 Years Ago (/isis/citation/CBB000202701/)

Book Miles, Walter R.; Goodwin, C. James; Barton, Lizette Royer; (2010)
Walter Miles and His 1920 Grand Tour of European Physiology and Psychology Laboratories (/isis/citation/CBB001320235/)

Chapter Ramsden, Edmund; (2011)
Travelling Facts about Crowded Rats: Rodent Experimentation and the Human Sciences (/isis/citation/CBB001000231/)

Thesis Milam, Erika Lorraine; (2006)
Looking for a Few Good Males: Female Choice in Evolutionary Biology, 1915--1975 (/isis/citation/CBB001560598/)

Article Rapchan, Eliane Sebeika; (2012)
Cultura e inteligência: reflexões antropológicas sobre aspectos não físicos da evolução em chimpanzés e humanos (/isis/citation/CBB001420597/)

Article Cirino, Sérgio Dias; Miranda, Rodrigo Lopes; Cruz, Robson Nascimento da; (2012)
The Beginnings of Behavior Analysis Laboratories in Brazil: A Pedagogical View (/isis/citation/CBB001251155/)

Article Adrian Currie; (2020)
Bottled Understanding: The Role of Lab Work in Ecology (/isis/citation/CBB604254804/)

Chapter Markel, Arkady L.; Trut, Lyudmila N.; (2011)
Behavior, Stress, and Evolution in Light of the Novosibirsk Selection Experiments (/isis/citation/CBB001500095/)

Article Kirk, Robert G. W.; (2014)
In Dogs We Trust? Intersubjectivity, Response-Able Relations, and the Making of Mine Detector Dogs (/isis/citation/CBB001214610/)

Article Tatjana Buklijas; (2017)
The laboratory and the asylum: Francis Walker Mott and the pathological laboratory at London County Council Lunatic Asylum, Claybury, Essex (1895–1916) (/isis/citation/CBB181490050/)

Article Kirk, Robert G. W.; (2012)
“Standardization through Mechanization”: Germ-Free Life and the Engineering of the Ideal Laboratory Animal (/isis/citation/CBB001230796/)