The study of behaviour is dominated by two approaches. On the one hand, ethologists aim to understand how behaviour promotes adaptation to natural contexts. On the other, neuroscientists aim to understand the molecular, cellular, circuit and psychological origins of behaviour. These two complementary approaches must be combined to arrive at a full understanding of behaviour in its natural setting. However, methodological limitations have restricted most neuroscientific research to the study of how discrete sensory stimuli elicit simple behavioural responses under controlled laboratory conditions that are only distantly related to those encountered in real life. Fortunately, the recent advent of neural monitoring and manipulation tools adapted for use in freely behaving animals has enabled neuroscientists to incorporate naturalistic behaviours into their studies and to begin to consider ethological questions. Here, we examine the promises and pitfalls of this trend by describing how investigations of rodent fear, aggression and dominance behaviours are changing to take advantage of an ethological appreciation of behaviour. We lay out current impediments to this approach and propose a framework for the evolution of the field that will allow us to take maximal advantage of an ethological approach to neuroscience and to increase its relevance for understanding human behaviour.

行为研究主要有两种方法。一方面，行为学家旨在了解行为如何促进对自然环境的适应。另一方面，神经科学家旨在了解行为的分子、细胞、回路和心理起源。必须将这两种互补的方法结合起来，才能全面理解自然环境中的行为。然而，方法论的局限性使大多数神经科学研究仅限于研究离散的感觉刺激如何在受控的实验室条件下引发简单的行为反应，这些条件与现实生活中遇到的那些只有远近的关系。幸运的是，最近出现的适用于自由行为动物的神经监测和操作工具使神经科学家能够将自然行为纳入他们的研究并开始考虑行为学问题。在这里，我们通过描述对啮齿动物恐惧、攻击性和支配行为的调查如何发生变化以利用对行为的行为学欣赏来研究这一趋势的前景和陷阱。我们列出了这种方法的当前障碍，并提出了一个该领域发展的框架，这将使我们能够最大限度地利用神经科学的行为学方法，并增加其与理解人类行为的相关性。