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According to a study that reveals an evolutionary link between the social behaviors of sea creatures and humans, octopus reacts to the popular drug, called MDMA or "ecstasy", which modifies the mood.
Scientists from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine studied the genome of a kind of octopus not known for its friendliness to peers and tested its behavioral response to ecstasy.
They found preliminary evidence of an evolutionary link between social behaviors of octopuses and humans, species separated by 500 million years ago on the evolutionary tree.
The results, published in the journal Current Biology, could pave the way for a precise study of the impact of psychiatric drug therapies in many animals far removed from human beings.
"The brains of octopus are more like snails than humans, but our studies confirm that they can behave the same way as we do," said Gul Dolen, assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University.
"What our studies suggest is that some brain chemicals, or neurotransmitters, that send signals between the neurons needed for these social behaviors are kept evolving," Dolen said.
Octopuses, says Dolen, are well known to be intelligent creatures. They can trap their prey in their claws, and Dolen said that there was evidence that they were also learning by observation and that they had episodic memory.
Gelatinous invertebrates (animals without a spine) are also known to have escaped from their tanks, eat other animals' food, escape guards and sneak up.
However, most octopuses are antisocial animals and avoid others, including other octopus.
Because of some of their behaviors, Dolen still thought that there might be a link between the genetics that guide social behavior at home and humans.
Genomics that drives neurotransmitters, signals that neurons pass between them to communicate, was a place to look.
Dolen and Eric Edsinger, a researcher at the US Marine Biology Laboratory, have looked more closely at the genomic sequence of Octopus bimaculoides, commonly known as two-point octopus in California.
Specifically, in the gene regions that control how neurons connect neurotransmitters to their membrane, researchers have found that octopuses and humans have almost identical genomic codes for the carrier that binds the neurotransmitter serotonin to the neuron's membrane. .
Serotonin is a well known mood regulator and closely related to certain types of depression.
The serotonin binding transporter is also known to be the place where the MDMA drug binds to brain cells and alters mood.
Researchers have sought to see how octopus responds to the drug, which also produces prosocial behaviors in humans, mice and other vertebrates.
Dolen designed an experiment with three connected water chambers: a vacuum, one with a plastic figurine under a cage and one with a female or male octopus raised in the laboratory under a cage.
Four male and female octopuses were exposed to MDMA by placing them in a beaker containing a liquefied version of the drug, which is absorbed by the octopi through their gills.
Then they were placed in the experimental chambers for 30 minutes. All four tended to spend more time in the room where a male octopus was caged than the other two rooms.
"It's not just quantitatively more time, but qualitative." They tended to squeeze the cage in their arms and put their parts in the cage, Dolen said.
"This is very similar to how humans react to MDMA and they touch each other frequently," Dolen said.
Under normal conditions, without MDMA, five male and female octopuses avoided only male cage octopuses.
Experiments suggest that brain circuits guiding social behavior in octopuses are present under normal conditions, but can be suppressed by natural or other circumstances.
(This article has not been modified by Business Standard staff and is generated automatically from a syndicated feed).
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