Dr. Rice will initially describe the concept of deploying ethologically–relevant pain behavioral measures in animal models.  He will illustrate this with two behaviors which he pioneered in the pain scenario- the innate social behavior of burrowing and the predator avoidance behavior of thigmotaxis. The core of the talk will discuss the multi-faceted approaches which he has employed to refine, validate and improve the generalizability of such models using prospective cross laboratory validation. The following will be covered: brief descriptions of two site validation in the initial report, followed up by multicenter prospective studies across academic and industry labs. However, he will focus on his recent activities in pioneering the use of systematic review and meta-analysis methods to synthesize the published evidence as a further approach to cross laboratory validation.  For burrowing this will be based on a meta-analysis published in 2022 and whilst for thigmotaxis a recently completed meta-analysis will be described. Finally he will wrap up by discussing that fact such complex behaviors are altered by environmental and disease cofactors and thus not specific to pain. Therefore he will sow the seeds for lively audience discussion on how to approach contextualize such behaviours to the pain setting.