Date: June 25, 2019
Source: American Geophysical Union
Researchers
studying the behavior and neuroscience of octopuses have long suspected that
the animals' arms may have minds of their own.
A new
model being presented in Bellevue, Washington State, is the first attempt at a
comprehensive representation of information flow between the octopus's suckers,
arms and brain, based on previous research in octopus neuroscience and
behavior, and new video observations conducted in the lab.
The new
research supports previous findings that octopus' suckers can initiate action
in response to information they acquire from their environment, coordinating
with neighboring suckers along the arm. The arms then process sensory and motor
information, and muster collective action in the peripheral nervous system,
without waiting on commands from the brain.
The
result is a bottom-up, or arm-up, decision mechanism rather than the brain-down
mechanism typical of vertebrates, like humans, according to Dominic Sivitilli,
a graduate student in behavioral neuroscience and astrobiology at the
University of Washington in Seattle who will present the new research Wednesday
at the 2019 Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon 2019).
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