“Octopuses are actually antisocial, but when you give them drugs – like ecstasy – they are more willing to spend time with each other.”
This is from the “Did you Know” Chappies box that features every day. What I would really like to know is the reasoning behing providing drugs to octopi in the first place. Was a worthwhile outcome of this event even on the list of possible outcomes? The back-story to this should make for interesting reading!!
I have a theory that a lot of academic research is really just for kicks; a bunch of scientists getting together and thinking “what if…”. I found an article by The Guardian, as well as the original published article.
This article by NPR quotes the researchers involved:
" The idea to test the drug’s effect in octopuses came from Gul Dolen, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University.
"My lab has been studying MDMA for a long time, she says, “and we have worked out a lot of neural mechanisms that enable MDMA to have these really, really profound pro-social effects.”
Dolen got interested in octopuses a few years ago, when scientists sequenced the full genetic code of a creature known as the California two-spot octopus.
It turns out that octopuses and people have almost identical genes for a protein that binds the signaling molecule serotonin to brain cells. This protein is also the target of MDMA, so Dolen wondered how the drug would affect this usually unfriendly animal."
I K N E W it!! A fascinating back-story.
Thanks for the dig, @SarahHoek