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Contributing to the delinquency of cephalopods.....
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Researchers Gave Octopuses Ecstasy And Watched What Would Happen, For Science (LINK)
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Contributing to the delinquency of cephalopods.....
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Ever wanted to see what happens when you give octopuses drugs? Scientists in the US have just lived that dream. They gave a solitary, asocial octopus species MDMA, aka ecstasy, and watched rapt as the cephalopods tried to hug all up on each other.
The research, as weird as it may seem, actually yielded some important results, as the experiment demonstrated an evolutionary link between humans and octopuses in the way the neurotransmitter serotonin encodes social behaviour.
"Despite anatomical differences between octopus and human brain, we've shown that there are molecular similarities in the serotonin transporter gene," said neuroscientist Gül Dölen of Johns Hopkins University.
"These molecular similarities are sufficient to enable MDMA to induce prosocial behaviours in octopuses."
Over 500 million years separates octopuses from humans, which is when the two last had a common ancestor. But after the genome of the California two-spot octopus (Octopus bimaculoides) was sequenced and published, scientists suspected that human and octopus brains may work the same - in one specific way.
The research, as weird as it may seem, actually yielded some important results, as the experiment demonstrated an evolutionary link between humans and octopuses in the way the neurotransmitter serotonin encodes social behaviour.
"Despite anatomical differences between octopus and human brain, we've shown that there are molecular similarities in the serotonin transporter gene," said neuroscientist Gül Dölen of Johns Hopkins University.
"These molecular similarities are sufficient to enable MDMA to induce prosocial behaviours in octopuses."
Over 500 million years separates octopuses from humans, which is when the two last had a common ancestor. But after the genome of the California two-spot octopus (Octopus bimaculoides) was sequenced and published, scientists suspected that human and octopus brains may work the same - in one specific way.
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