Preface

If you are the parent of a cat, have you ever had such an experience in life? The cat is mischievous, and you try your best to catch it and teach it a lesson, but there is nothing you can do. In the end, both you and the cat are exhausted and fall to one side. You coldly reach out your hand and grab the cat's back neck, and the cat suddenly stops struggling and obediently remains motionless.

After a cat is caught, its neck will not move. However, are all cats like this? Let's first take a look at the Fold Ear Cat.

Mr. Yin is the owner of the Fold Ear Cat, which has been kept at home for a year and a half. Although I am usually well behaved, I still accidentally scratch my master. Mr. Yin said that as long as you avoid the cat's alert area, it won't hurt anyone, but it can't stop it from moving around! Can grabbing the back of the neck make it stay still like in the video?

After Mr. Yin caught the kitten, the folded eared cat felt like it had been punctured, with its limbs spread out and unable to move. Could it be that the kitten recognizes its owner? Next, the reporter experimented on their own. During the journalist's experience this time, it was found that the kitten that was grabbed by the flesh behind its neck and lifted up also froze for three to four seconds. But it quickly resumed its activities. Mr. Yin told the reporter that it may be due to the reporter's heavy grip, and the kitten is unwilling.

Through the personal experience of the first kitten, we found that the method of grabbing the skin behind the kitten's neck is quite effective, but the duration of maintenance is a bit short.

Let's take another look at a Norwegian forest cat. Its size is much larger than a folding ear.

As a result, this 12-year-old cat experienced the same situation. After being grabbed by the flesh behind its neck and lifted up, its limbs were spread out and unable to move.

Next is the third experimental kitten. This is an mature Siamese cat. How should this Siamese cat move when it is also grabbed by the flesh behind its neck. So why do some cats really stop moving while others have no effect using the same method?

In fact, there are individual differences among different cats. Generally speaking, most cats tend to be relatively quiet or even completely motionless when the skin behind their neck is grabbed.

Because when raising kittens, big cats usually hold their necks directly. They think it's their mother holding them, and if they move around, they might fall off, so they won't move. But after a long time, it doesn't want to. Because cats are uncomfortable with just one posture.

That is to say, the fact that cats become quiet after being grabbed by the flesh behind their neck is actually a genetic reaction, but because the feeling of human hands is different from the feeling of a cat mother picking up a child, cats will recover to their original state within a certain period of time. As for the kitten that moved around from the moment it was caught, like the third experimental cat, it is likely related to its individual's previous experiences.

A group of Japanese neurobiologists studied a series of physiological reactions in animals when they are picked up by their mothers and found that similar "sedative effects" not only exist in mice, but also in human infants. The three most typical physiological reactions in the "sedative effect" that are similar between humans and mice are: cessation of crying, obedience, and decreased heart rate.  

The significance of this research lies in the fact that the "consistency of physiological responses between species" allows scientists to study the reasons behind the phenomenon through mice (rather than human infants), and the research results not only explain the question that this article attempts to answer about "a clip freezing a cat", but also answer another question that is more relevant to us humans: "Why lifting and shaking a baby while crying can make the baby quiet down".  

In the experiment, they anesthetized the nerves that sense movement in the neck of young mice, and after that, the "sedative effect" caused by being picked up weakened. At the same time, surgical removal of a portion of the brain to interfere with incoming signals from the cerebellar cortex can also prolong the time for the mother mouse to calm down the young mouse. If the mouse cannot perceive being caught behind its neck, it will not curl up; If the cerebellum cannot receive signals, young mice will not show compliance. The weakening of heartbeat and changes in body posture are directly achieved by the parasympathetic nervous system and the efferent nerves of the cerebellum. This series of physiological reactions makes the young mice quiet, obedient, and curled up, making it easier for the mother mouse to take them to a safe place.

So, it's not that the flesh behind the cat's neck is decease, on the contrary, it's the sensory nerves behind the neck that give the kitten the signal "I'm being picked up"; The subsequent physiological response similar to being acupoints is not due to the blockage of nerve channels, but rather because signals from the brain guide them to experience a physiological phenomenon that facilitates the transfer of anesthesia.