Tutorial 03 Flashcards
Which phylum do octopuses belong to?
Mollusca
What is the latest common ancestor of humans and octopuses?
2mm flatworm
When was the last common ancestor of humans and octopuses?
750 million years ago
What is the brain?
The brain is an organ which is the center of the nervous system
Causal regularity of brain/NS
Change type A in nervous System -> change type B in brain state
What is the nervous system?
A nervous system is the set of all connected neurons plus the cells that support their functioning
What is the function of the brain?
A brain has the function of processing information (cognition) and controlling behavior
How is the brain‘s type of processing?
Adaptive
How does function (cognition) change?
It changes over time on the basis of prior activation
Distribution of human nervous system
86 billion neurons in the brain
100 billion neurons in the peripheral nervous system
Distribution of octopus nervous system
50 million neurons in central brain
160 million neurons in separate optic lobes
320 million neurons in branchial ganglia in its arms
Physiological uniquities of octopuses
No spine, no joints, 1000s of finger-like suckers
Arm nerve cords
Octopus arms are highly complex, contain many interneurons which support cognition and behavioral control
Somatotopic maps
Cortical or subcortical arrangements of sensory inputs and local circuits that reflect the topological organization of the body
Where can Somatotopic maps be found in humans?
Can be found in the spinal cord, cerebellum and somatosensory cortex
Somatotopic maps in octopuses
So far no somatotopic maps have been found
Why are there no somatotopic maps in octopuses?
Possible explanation: lack of joints makes it overly complex and redundant
->suggesting that is because spatial and proprioceptive info can be represented in neural networks found in the arm cords
Do octopuses have multiple brains?
Some say 9, some say at least 2
Octopuses have one organ at the center of their nervous system but non-central organs also do brain-like functions
Organization of the octopus‘ nervous system
Behavior results not from the sum of its parts but from the interactions of its parts (in space and with intrinsic „memory“ capacity in time) which is an exponentially larger set of functions than number of parts
Control of embodied organization
Behavior arises from the system as a whole through dynamic physical and information interactions among all its components
Octopus in the lab
Good learning capacities
Shoe domain-general cognition
Various visual disticntion capacities
Have long-term memories
