Swanson's Cat

[imatfaal]

In the latest Swan's on Tea blog there is a link to a slighty spooky video of a cat being completely calmed (practically "deactivated" per the vid title) by a bulldog clip to the scruff of the neck with no discomfort or obvious side effects. Its quite a remarkable transformation for such a feisty and seemingly independent animal to be calmed, almost frozen, so entirely and in such an outwardly humane manner.

 

Is this behaviour a throwback to the time as a kitten in which mother cat carries kittens in her mouth (and the young cannot wriggle too much) or is there something deeper?

 

There is no chance that such reversion to infantile automatic behaviour exists in humans is there?

Edited July 14, 2011 by imatfaal

[swansont]

For anyone who misses it, the post title is a reference to an early scene in Young Frankenstein

 

What if we block the nerve impulse by simply applying local pressure? Which can be done with any ordinary metal clamp just at the swelling on the posterior nerve roots for, oh say, five or six seconds.

[CaptainPanic]

Is this behaviour a throwback to the time as a kitten in which mother cat carries kittens in her mouth (and the young cannot wriggle too much) or is there something deeper?

I think it's the first.

Cats also like to extend and retract their claws when they're comfortable (

, it seems to be called in English). That's definitely a 'throwback' to the time when they were kittens.

 

There is no chance that such reversion to infantile automatic behaviour exists in humans is there?

Well, we have lots of automatic behavior... both quite simple automated responses (hit your knee on the right place when you sit, and your foot comes up) and more complicated physical responses to emotions (crying as a result of sadness or fear).

 

And one of the most calming positions to be in, is to lie your head against the chest of someone else you're comfortable with (preferably your partner or perhaps family member). Pretty 'infantile' if you want. Mothers hold their babies pretty much the same way. And the heartbeat of someone else is also calming, because you already listened to that for 9 months in your mom's belly.

 

And when someone grabs you in the neck, you will probably automatically move your head back and lift your shoulders, and possibly you might even bend your knees a little. Seems insignificant compared to an almost paralysed cat, but then we aren't carried around by our necks when we're babies.

[imatfaal]

Capt P - I agree with your examples to an extent. however, the patellar reflex is very simple and can actually be traced to a neural level (and no higher centres involvement); conversely the great feeling of resting one's head on the chest of another is very high level (and more emotional than hard-wired). The reaction of that cat seemed to be almost total motor relaxation

[Maximilian]

I think this is quite interesting, so I've decided to do some reading.

I have personally induced tonic immobility on several creatures. The most common way to achieve this on vertebrates is to turn them upside down, and I do this to frogs very often.

In that video, the technique they are using is called the "Pinch Induced Behavioral Inhibition" (PIBI) or "Clipnosis", which was described by some veterinarian researchers from Ohio State University in 2008. The paper is titled "Pinch-induced behavioral inhibition ('clipnosis') in domestic cats", but it's not open-source and I haven't been able to access it. The patent application publication does have some background info, and can be found here:

http://www.freepaten...20100275856.pdf

The articles that I have access to which mention tonic immobility in cats do not dwell deeply into neither the biological mechanisms nor the evolutionary explanations of this effect, which is why I am now currently going through the literature about the tonic immobility in other organisms. As for the evolutionary explanation, I think that if this behaviour would only be useful during infancy it would be lost before adulthood. I believe it could serve in male - male combat, perhaps the male can establish his dominance by "PIBI'ing" the opposite male, or the male may do this to control the female during sex. This is, of course, speculation. I will later look up some "cat fight" videos and see if they try to scruff each other, and see if the battle ends when one achieves this. I am also very interested in understanding the biological mechanism.

I am currently reading a pretty interesting but old and probably outdated paper titled "

On the Mechanism of Tonic Immobility in Vertebrates" by Hudson Hoagland (1928). Concerning humans, it contains the following note;

1 Tonic immobility or a state akin to it has been described in children by Piéron (1913). I have recently been able to produce the condition in adult human beings. The technique was brought to my attention by a student in physiology, Mr. W.I. Gregg, who after hearing a lecture on tonic immobility suggested that a state produced by the following form of man handling which he had seen exhibited as a sort of trick might be essentially the same thing. If one bends forward from the waist through an angle of 90°, places the hands on the abdomen, and after taking a deep breath is violently thrown backwards through 180° by a man on either side, the skeletal muscles contract vigorously and a state of pronounced immobility lasting for some seconds may result. The condition is striking and of especial interest since this type of manipulation (sudden turning into a dorsal position) is the most common one used for producing tonic immobility in vertebrates.

Shark researchers have been using behavioral inhibition techniques for a while now, so shark literature may be a good place to find relevant information.

Anyway, thank you for showing this to me! If I find anything else that I think you may find interesting, I'll make sure to post.

Edited July 18, 2011 by Bolitoglossinae