Alyssa Lee

Mr. Ippolito

Current Event #3

9/5/18

“Octopuses given Mood Drug 'Ecstasy' Reveal Genetic Link to Evolution of Social Behaviors in Humans.” ScienceDaily, ScienceDaily, 20 Sept. 2018, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180920175206.htm.

Evolution is an intriguing field of science- not only because it tracks the incredible adaptations of organisms to their environments over time, but also the fact that we can uncover links between two species that are seemingly completely unrelated. Such is the case in the experiments of Dr. Gül Dölen, assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and his colleague Dr. Eric Edsinger from the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts. Dölen recently conducted an experiment to test his hypothesis that octopuses are distant relatives of human beings. Octopuses are supposedly rather antisocial creatures and tend to avoid contact with any live beings, including other octopuses (with the exception of mating, although even then octopuses tend to return to their solitude after ensuring the inheritance of their genes). This runs contrary to the ways in which human beings, who require bonding and physical contact with others, tend to behave. Nevertheless, Dölen surmised that there may be similarities between social behavior caused by neurotransmitters, or “signals that neurons pass between each other to communicate”, of both species. Upon examination, they found that the genomic sequence for the transporter binding serotonin, a neurotransmitter that regulates mood, to the neuron is nearly identical in the California two-spot octopus and human beings. Thus, the two researchers set up an experiment to test their hypothesis- they filled three chambers, one that only contained water, one that contained an action figure beneath a cage, and one that contained a lab-bred male or female octopus beneath a cage. They connected these three chambers and added liquified MDMA (a.k.a. “Ecstasy”, a drug that induces heightened sensation, energy, and pleasure in humans) to the control beakers where the octopuses were first placed. Without adding MDMA, the octopuses tended to stay away from the caged octopus. The results of the experiments were profound- all four octopuses that acted as test subjects were drawn to the chamber with the caged octopus and demonstrated unusually affectionate behavior such as hugging and “putting their mouth parts on the cage”. This was especially shocking behavior because it demonstrated that at one point along the evolutionary spectrum, octopuses evolved along the same lines as human beings did (in terms of social behavior). This may open up the possibility for future studies in the same field, as we now realize that there could be many evolutionary links between species that were previously thought to be have evolved separately.

These findings are extremely important to the field of evolution because they have introduced the possibility that we as humans are far more entwined with other species along the path of evolution than we had once believed. If we are indeed genetically related to octopuses- a species that could not seem any more different from humans- then who is to say that we are not distant relatives of beetles or birds? This could lead to a whole new study examining different facets in which human beings could be related to other species, a study that could possibly turn our knowledge of evolution on its head. Scientists could examine a variety of new possible links between organisms as seemingly different from one another as fish and elephants. The results of these sorts of experiments could also aid us in explaining our physical, mental, and physiological developments and behaviors when compared to those of other organisms. Perhaps most importantly, this experiment provides further evidence (albeit perhaps not completely concrete evidence without the input of other researchers) of the digression of evolution, or its tendency to favor branching and multiple evolutionary pathways rather than being a more linear process. It helps us to gain greater understanding as to the ways in which human beings have evolved over time, and how, even despite our physical appearances, organisms that are as advanced along the evolutionary process as human beings could share a common ancestor with organisms as formless and gelatinous as octopuses.

This article is particularly strong because it clearly and concisely explains the specifics of the experiments as well as the science behind it- for example, it describes the basic layout of the experiment with the three chambers, and explains the scientists’ motives for conducting it (i.e. to test their hypothesis that stated that octopuses and human beings shared a remarkably similar genomic code in social behavior, specifically for serotonin receptors). There is little to no confusion as to how and why the researchers made the conclusions that they did based on the results of their experiment, and the article states the information in a way that makes the steps seem logical and rather easy to follow. Despite these strengths, there are a few weaknesses in this article as well as the experiment. In terms of the article itself, there are some issues that the author should address- for example, the author did not explain what MDMA was, and for readers that did not know what the acronym was referring to, the final connection between humans and octopuses would not make sense to them. I myself did not understand until I researched in more depth and found that “ecstasy” and MDMA were referring to the same drug. Additionally, the author did not explain why the octopuses tended to avoid only male octopuses, and this was my main source of confusion while reading this article. Although the reader could assume that males were avoided because the test subjects were male, this conclusion is uncertain and so the author could benefit from explaining exactly why male octopuses were more likely to be avoided than females (especially if some of the test subjects were female octopuses).