Tutorial 03

Question 1

Which phylum do octopuses belong to?

Answer 1

Mollusca

Question 2

What is the latest common ancestor of humans and octopuses?

Answer 2

2mm flatworm

Question 3

When was the last common ancestor of humans and octopuses?

Answer 3

750 million years ago

Question 4

What is the brain?

Answer 4

The brain is an organ which is the center of the nervous system

Question 5

Causal regularity of brain/NS

Answer 5

Change type A in nervous System -> change type B in brain state

Question 6

What is the nervous system?

Answer 6

A nervous system is the set of all connected neurons plus the cells that support their functioning

Question 7

What is the function of the brain?

Answer 7

A brain has the function of processing information (cognition) and controlling behavior

Question 8

How is the brain‘s type of processing?

Answer 8

Adaptive

Question 9

How does function (cognition) change?

Answer 9

It changes over time on the basis of prior activation

Question 10

Distribution of human nervous system

Answer 10

86 billion neurons in the brain
100 billion neurons in the peripheral nervous system

Question 11

Distribution of octopus nervous system

Answer 11

50 million neurons in central brain
160 million neurons in separate optic lobes
320 million neurons in branchial ganglia in its arms

Question 12

Physiological uniquities of octopuses

Answer 12

No spine, no joints, 1000s of finger-like suckers

Question 13

Arm nerve cords

Answer 13

Octopus arms are highly complex, contain many interneurons which support cognition and behavioral control

Question 14

Somatotopic maps

Answer 14

Cortical or subcortical arrangements of sensory inputs and local circuits that reflect the topological organization of the body

Question 15

Where can Somatotopic maps be found in humans?

Answer 15

Can be found in the spinal cord, cerebellum and somatosensory cortex

Question 16

Somatotopic maps in octopuses

Answer 16

So far no somatotopic maps have been found

Question 17

Why are there no somatotopic maps in octopuses?

Answer 17

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

Question 18

Do octopuses have multiple brains?

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Organization of the octopus‘ nervous system

Answer 19

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

Question 20

Control of embodied organization

Answer 20

Behavior arises from the system as a whole through dynamic physical and information interactions among all its components

Question 21

Octopus in the lab

Answer 21

Good learning capacities
Shoe domain-general cognition
Various visual disticntion capacities
Have long-term memories