Ability to Discriminate Between Qualities and Intensities of Pain This harm-free preference for a place is found to have been considered strong evidence of an affective experience of pain among vertebrates. Those that were given saline only were found to have not cared less about the chamber where they were administered an analgesic.
Moreover, when the invertebrates that had been injected with a painful shot were then given an analgesic called lidocaine, they tended to opt for the chamber in which they felt instant pain relief. Those administered with non-harmful saline, on the other hand, did not exhibit any avoidance. Octopuses that were given an acetic acid injection into one arm after one training session in one three-chambered box exhibited clear avoidance of the chamber in which they were given the said shot. This particular study goes many steps ahead. Past research by Crook and others has found that octopuses are capable of reflexively reacting to noxious stimuli, learning avoidance of such harmful settings. Octopuses are likely to feel and react to pain the same way as mammals do. These are similar characteristics exhibited by mammals, even though these said invertebrates' nervous system is organized in an essentially different manner to vertebrates.ĪLSO READ: Scientists Study Impacts of Acidic Water on Octopuses Through the use of detailed measurements of spontaneous behaviors, as well as neural activity associated with pain, Crook has discovered three lines of evidence, all indicating animals have the ability to feel negative emotional states when they feel any pain. San Francisco State University Neurobiologist Robyn Crook, who has been exploring this issue for years, the most recent work from her lab has now utilized similar protocols for examining pain in laboratory rodents on cephalopods, particularly, the octopus. Octopuses' Potential for Feeling PainĮssentially, octopuses are considered the most neurologically complex invertebrates on this planet, and yet, surprisingly, few studies have concentrated on their potential for feeling pain. While vertebrates are perceived to experience both emotional and physical aspects of pain in general, it has yet to be resolved if invertebrates, characterized as having much simpler nervous systems, have the same capacity. Rather, it is a multifaceted emotional condition that leads to either suffering or stress. The feeling of pain is far more than a mere reflex to dangerous stimuli or injury. This is the first strong evidence for this capability in invertebrates. ScienceAlert reports that a particular study entitled " Behavioral and neurophysiological evidence suggests affective pain experience in octopus" specifies that the said animals are likely to feel and react to pain the same way as mammals do.
Research suggests that octopuses' pain is not just based on physical reaction but on their emotional response, too.