Foreword 
The Laboratory of Brain Evolution and Behavior was conceived 20 years 
ago as a place where animals could be studied in quasi-natural habitats. 
We wanted a facility where scientists from several biological and behavioral 
disciplines could collaborate in disentangling the connections between brain 
and action, in ways which cannot be done so well, and in some instances not 
done at all, in the conventional laboratory setting. 
Paul MacLean developed the concept shortly after he came to the NIMH 
in 1957, and he and Robert Livingston, then Director of Basic Research, 
had it pretty well outlined by the time I returned to NIMH as Director of 
Intramural Research in 1961. For the next 10 years all of us worked hard to 
make this dream into a reality. Though progress in planning and in secur- 
ing authority and funding for the new buildings was slow, we were ulti- 
mately successful, and in 1971 the new research facility was dedicated. 
It then consisted of 40 acres of woods and meadows, a waterfowl pond, and 
three laboratory buildings, and we have since added several additional 
habitats. It is a part of the 500 acre NIH Animal Center, which provides 
support and assistance of many kinds to the Laboratory. 
It is a pleasure to acknowledge this symposium on The Behavior and 
Neurology of Lizards as the latest evidence of the importance of Dr. 
MacLean’s concept. Since 1971 his small group of staff scientists and 
visiting scholars have pursued research on squirrel monkeys, dogs, rats 
and mice, turkeys, lizards, hamsters, and a number of more exotic species, 
utilizing the concepts and methods of neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, 
pharmacology, and psychology. From time to time they select a problem 
of wide interest and bring together a group of scientists to pool their 
knowledge, as they and the Smithsonian Institution have done in the present 
symposium. It is hard to overestimate the value which this very unusual, 
and perhaps unique. Laboratory has had in the study of brain and behavior. 
Though the Laboratory has been in formal existence for only 7 years, 
it grew out of a neurosciences research program which is now 25 years old. 
That is hardly venerable, but it is a significant span of experience to be 
under stable leadership and with a high degree of continuity of staff mem- 
bership. It has been our good fortune to have had the administrative and 
scientific support from NIMH and NIH to make this long record possible. 
We are indebted to Drs. MacLean and Greenberg, and their colleagues 
from the Smithsonian Institution, Drs. Marcellini and Wimmer, for their 
leadership in organizing this comprehensive symposium on the lizard, a 
most interesting animal form. There is no question but that many other 
fundamental contributions will be forthcoming from this field station with 
its finely equipped set of laboratories set down among the meadows. 
John C. Eberhart, Ph.D. 
Director of Intramural Research 
National Institute of Mental Health 
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