Previous studies on animal cognition have been ongoing for decades. Most of the research focuses on associations of cells found in the brain or neurons, as they are theorized to hold the secrets of neurological functions in many species.
Decision-Making and Behavior in Smaller Species with Lesser Neurons
In this latest investigation, scholars from Salk Institute for Biological Studies analyzed how animals think through behaviors instead of cells. The interest of the study revolved around a species of worm called Pristionchus pacificus.
According to the findings, the Pristionchus pacificus was able to see through multiple factors of an event and choose the following response in between two distinct actions.
The discovery from the worms is quite surprising even for the experts, considering that the particular animals only contain over 300 neurons. The count of the brain cells is comparatively lesser than the 86 billion neurons in the human species.
The latest study contributes to the pursuit of knowledge over the motivation aspects and cognitive skills of animals. In addition, the results present how the complex decision-making process in larger creatures and humans can also work in small biological life forms.
Salk's Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory expert and senior author of the study Sreekanth Chalasani explained in a EurkeAlert report that their research demonstrates how a simple system such as the Pristionchus pacificus worm resolves a complex decision making in a goal-directed manner.
Simpler biological systems like worms also have the capability to run through various strategies and choose better the better choice between those strategies that will benefit them with respect to the situation they are under, the author continued.
The data collected from this examination serves as the basis for understanding how more complex systems such as humans analyze and come up with decisions, Chalasani said.
Worms Can Do Complex Decisions
The observation from the microsystems involved the exposure of Pristionchus pacificus to a different species called Caenorhabditis elegans. Pristionchus pacificus has a sense of defending its food and attacking prey through biting. In the study, the authors attempted to identify the motivation whenever it bites.
Pristionchus pacificus was found with two strategies when biting the competitor Caenorhabditis elegans.
The first is a predator strategy, where the Pristionchus pacificus bites the prey to kill it. The second is territorial strategy, where the worm bites to repel the Caenorhabditis elegans away from its food source.
The Pristionchus pacificus tend to use the first strategy against a weaker larval Caenorhabditis elegans., while the second strategy was observed to be beneficial for the worm against a much stronger adult competitor.
Throughout the examination, the team concluded that the Pristionchus pacificus was able to exhibit decision-making in the form of weighing costs and benefits that could lead to the outcome of various scenarios.
The behavior recorded from the study is common in vertebrate species, but was not expected to be performed by worms. Further studies will be carried out to know more about the cost-benefit analysis of the animal and to tell whether their ability to calculate is hard-wired or flexible.
The study was published in the journal Current Biology, titled "Flexible reprogramming of Pristionchus pacificus motivation for attacking Caenorhabditis elegans in predator-prey competition."
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