How do you study the neuroscience of a creature whose brain bears little resemblance to that of humans? One approach, detailed yesterday (September 20) in Current Biology, is to see how the animal reacts to MDMA—also known as the street drug ecstasy. Johns Hopkins University researchers Gül Dölen and Eric Edsinger report that the drug induced social behavior in California two-spot octopuses (Octopus bimaculoides), much as it does in humans, suggesting similar roles for serotonin signaling in intelligent life throughout the animal kingdom.
“I was absolutely shocked that it had this effect,” Judit Pungor, a neuroscientist at the University of Oregon who was not involved in the research, tells NPR.
Octopuses are more closely related to snails than to humans, and their brains are organized very differently—they lack a cerebral cortex, for example. “It’s a little bit like studying alien intelligence,” Dölen tells National Geographic. “It can potentially tell us ...
