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Gutnick T, Neef A, Cherninskyi A, Ziadi-Künzli F, Di Cosmo A, Lipp HP, Kuba MJ. Recording electrical activity from the brain of behaving octopus. Curr Biol 2023; 33:1171-1178.e4. [PMID: 36827988 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.02.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/15/2022] [Revised: 01/25/2023] [Accepted: 02/01/2023] [Indexed: 02/25/2023]
Abstract
Octopuses, which are among the most intelligent invertebrates,1,2,3,4 have no skeleton and eight flexible arms whose sensory and motor activities are at once autonomous and coordinated by a complex central nervous system.5,6,7,8 The octopus brain contains a very large number of neurons, organized into numerous distinct lobes, the functions of which have been proposed based largely on the results of lesioning experiments.9,10,11,12,13 In other species, linking brain activity to behavior is done by implanting electrodes and directly correlating electrical activity with observed animal behavior. However, because the octopus lacks any hard structure to which recording equipment can be anchored, and because it uses its eight flexible arms to remove any foreign object attached to the outside of its body, in vivo recording of electrical activity from untethered, behaving octopuses has thus far not been possible. Here, we describe a novel technique for inserting a portable data logger into the octopus and implanting electrodes into the vertical lobe system, such that brain activity can be recorded for up to 12 h from unanesthetized, untethered octopuses and can be synchronized with simultaneous video recordings of behavior. In the brain activity, we identified several distinct patterns that appeared consistently in all animals. While some resemble activity patterns in mammalian neural tissue, others, such as episodes of 2 Hz, large amplitude oscillations, have not been reported. By providing an experimental platform for recording brain activity in behaving octopuses, our study is a critical step toward understanding how the brain controls behavior in these remarkable animals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tamar Gutnick
- Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Graduate University, Physics and Biology Unit, 904 0495 Okinawa, Japan; Department of Biology, University of Naples Federico II, Via Cintia 26, 80126 Napoli, Italy.
| | - Andreas Neef
- Göttingen Campus Institute for Dynamics of Biological Networks, 37073 Göttingen, Germany; Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, 37077 Göttingen, Germany; Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, 37073 Göttingen, Germany; Institute for the Dynamics of Complex Systems, University of Göttingen, 37075 Göttingen, Germany; Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, 37075 Göttingen, Germany; Center for Biostructural Imaging of Neurodegeneration, 37075 Göttingen, Germany
| | | | - Fabienne Ziadi-Künzli
- Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Graduate University, Nonlinear and Non-equilibrium Physics Unit, Okinawa 904-0495, Japan
| | - Anna Di Cosmo
- Department of Biology, University of Naples Federico II, Via Cintia 26, 80126 Napoli, Italy
| | - Hans-Peter Lipp
- Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Zurich, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Michael J Kuba
- Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Graduate University, Physics and Biology Unit, 904 0495 Okinawa, Japan; Department of Biology, University of Naples Federico II, Via Cintia 26, 80126 Napoli, Italy
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Abstract
While color vision is achieved by comparison of signals of photoreceptors tuned to different parts of light spectra, polarization vision is achieved by comparison of signals of photoreceptors tuned to different orientations of the electric field component of visible light. Therefore, it has been suggested that polarization vision is similar to color vision. In most animals that have color vision, the shape of luminance contrast sensitivity curve differs from the shape of chromatic contrast sensitivity curve. While luminance contrast sensitivity typically decreases at low spatial frequency due to lateral inhibition, chromatic contrast sensitivity generally remains high at low spatial frequency. To find out if the processing of polarization signals is similar to the processing of chromatic signals, we measured the polarization and luminance contrast sensitivity dependence in a color-blind animal with well-developed polarization vision, Octopus tetricus. We demonstrate that, in Octopus tetricus, both luminance and polarization contrast sensitivity decrease at low spatial frequency and peak at the same spatial frequency (0.3 cpd). These results suggest that, in octopus, polarization and luminance signals are processed via similar pathways.
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Affiliation(s)
- Luis Nahmad-Rohen
- Leigh Marine Laboratory, Institute of Marine Science, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
| | - Misha Vorobyev
- Optometry and Vision Science, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
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