Sensation is an active process. I will discuss the behavior of orofacial sensation in mice and the wiring of motor circuits that underlie this behavior. A key claim is the role of breathing as a “master clock” in coordinating orofacial motor actions. I will further discuss ongoing work on the impact of rhythmic coordination on the representation of sensory signals that project to primary sensory cortex and are processed within cortex. This work involves techniques that span open-arena behavioral analysis through adaptive optics nonlinear microscopy.