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    • Scientists are one step closer to finding out what makes octopuses tick
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    Scientists are one step closer to finding out what makes octopuses tick

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    • Octopus nervous systems are structured completely differently from ours. However, eight-limbed molluscs are known to be highly intelligent, prompting many questions about exactly how their neural networks work.
    • Two teams of scientists recently produced state-of-the-art 3D models of octopus nervous systems that begin to outline how these intricate networks work for the first time.
    • In the future, experts hope that these models will facilitate our understanding of these strange and fascinating creatures.

    octopus i am wild creatures. They’re objectively weird, noisy, alien-like creatures that roam the ocean and can penetrate anything the only hard surface on their bodies—their beaks—can pass through. No bones, no backbone, all crushed.

    But arguably the weirdest thing about octopuses is that they are intelligent. Surprisingly smart. And they are smart in a very different way than we are. Octopuses have what is sometimes called distributed intelligence, which comes from the fact that their nervous system is arranged in a completely different way than the human nervous system is—or, frankly, the nervous system of any kind of animal with a spine.

    In humans, all thoughts, movements and impulses originate in the brain. The brain then sends signals to the body, and the body completes whatever task or reaction has been functionally assigned to it. This is not the case with octopuses. They have a central brain, but the rest of them the nervous system it is somewhat organized around various smaller blobs with a high concentration of neurons that can (and do) operate independently of the central brain. This is most noticeable in those wavy, bent arms – all eight octopus arms can independently move, feel and explore without express commands from the brain. They literally they have minds of their own.

    Now, we know this to be true. And we know the basic structure of neurons that makes it possible. What we don’t know, on a cell level, it is How this is exactly how it works. And that’s exactly what the teams behind two new papers — both published in the journal — did Current Biology and led by researchers at San Francisco State University—is trying to find out.

    Both teams set out to create 3D reconstructions of the neurons that make up these creatures’ nervous systems, allowing them to see the complex makeup of these impressive limbs like never before. A team, led by postdoctoral fellow Gabrielle Winters-Bostwick, labeled different types of neurons at the molecular level, examined multiple sections along an arm, and combined the data gathered from those sections to create a 3D model. The other team—led by graduate student Diana Neacsu—built their model using a technique called 3D electron microscopy.

    “To have (these two works) converge at the same time is the amount we can learn from either experiment it’s just astronomically larger,” said Robyn Crook, who leads the lab where both studies were completed, in a press release. “I would say these papers really facilitate discovery in new ways.”

    And he was certainly not wrong. The two teams could learn a lot from their combined results. from The Winters-Bostwick studyexperts were able to learn that the type of neurons found near the base of the arm (closer to brain) is substantially different from the type of neurons found near the apex. And Neacsu’s study provided even more discoveries, including that there is “symmetry in the organization of ganglia and repeated patterns in the branching of nerves, blood vessels, and more,” according to the press release.

    In addition, Neacsu’s study revealed that some of these repeating patterns are organized around the suction cups that ironically line the octopus. arms. “To see how closely (nervous system structures) associated with the suction cups was really surprising,” Neacsu said in the press release. “But it makes sense because suction cups play such a big role in the octopus’s ecological niche, helping them hunt, sense and more.”

    All of this research is fairly front-line and has predominantly been limited (so far) by access to the technology used to complete these investigations. But the experts behind these studies expect them to be a starting point for even more in-depth research in the future.

    “Why do you have an animal of such complexity that doesn’t seem to follow the same rules as our other example—humans—of a very complex nervous system?” Crook asked in the press release. “There are many assumptions. It can be functional. There could be something fundamentally different about the tasks the octopus arms have to do. But it could also be an evolutionary accident.”

    It seems we still have a lot of work to do to really understand these profound aliens creatures.

    Headshot of Jackie Appel

    Jackie is a writer and editor from Pennsylvania. He especially enjoys writing about space and physics and enjoys sharing the strange wonders of the universe with anyone who will listen. She is watched over in her home office by her two cats.

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