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Scientists have found a genetic and evolutionary link between the social behavior of octopus and humans. Both species – humans and octopus – have separated about 500 million years ago from a common ancestor in the evolutionary tree and yet, there are similarities.
How did the researchers come to this conclusion? Drug addicts. A number of asocial or unfriendly octopuses have been administered in MDMA or, more commonly, in Ecstasy, E or Molly, a psychoactive drug. The "Hug Drug", as it is sometimes called, is known to cause people to cuddle and touch each other frequently and this has had the exact effect on the octopus too, notes a statement from Johns Hopkins University.
If the results are validated, the report notes, this could pave the way for research on how psychiatric drugs and related therapies might work on animals that are also related to humans.
Octopus brains are more like snails than humans, "said Gül Dölen of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who was the lead investigator. "But our studies add to the evidence that they may present some of the behaviors we can."
"What our studies suggest is that some brain chemicals, or neurotransmitters, that send signals between the neurons required for these social behaviors are kept in evolution."
Dölen goes on to explain that octopuses are known to be rather intelligent. Apart from how they can attract prey to them and despite being gelatinous invertebrates, they learn by observing their environment and scientists think they have episodic memory. They are well known for easily escaping their tanks, stealing food from others, hiding from guards and even sneaking in, notes the report.
However, octopuses, for the most part, are not social creatures and do not live with octopuses. Despite this, the researchers thought that there may still be a long-lost link between octopus and humans due to genetics and other behaviors they present.
One of the many places to look for links such as this one was about genomics that drives neurotransmitters – the report says.
Four male and female octopuses were exposed to MDMA and placed in the experimental chambers. The rooms were three connected water tanks: one was empty, the other a plastic figurine and the last a male or a female in a cage.
The released octopuses were then released into the chambers for 30 minutes. All four spent more time in the room where the male octopus was caged than the other two rooms. "It's not just quantitatively more time, but qualitative." They tended to kiss the cage and put their pieces in the cage, "says Dölen.
"It's very similar to how humans react to MDMA and they touch each other frequently."
When they are sober, they have avoided the octopus in cages, say the researchers.
Experiments suggest, says Dölen, that brain circuits guiding social behavior among octopuses are strong under normal conditions – when they are sober – but they might also have been suppressed by natural or other circumstances.
"The octopuses will suspend their antisocial behavior for mating, for example, and then, when they have finished mating, they will go into an aggressive and antisocial way," says Dolen.
The study was first published in the journal Current Biology.
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