• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Worms Might Have Basic “Emotions” In Response To Electric Shocks

September 26, 2023 by Deborah Bloomfield

A new study has revealed that Caenorhabditis elegans, a roundworm commonly used in scientific research, could possibly possess primitive “emotions”.

Although humans have anthropomorphized animal emotions for a long time, the reality is that studying their emotions is quite a challenging feat. However, changes in an animal’s behavior, in response to a trigger, might be regulated by brain function resembling basic “emotions”. 

Advertisement

Following research suggesting that C. elegans has roaming and sleeping behaviors, scientists from Nagoya City University and Mills College at Northeastern University set out to determine if the roundworms might have other behavioral states that could be regulated by emotions.

The study found that, when stimulated with an electric shock (a few seconds of alternating current), the worms started moving at an unusually high speed. This change in behavior continued for up to two minutes after the initial shock – a persistent behavioral response like this is caused by persistent neural activity, which behavioral neuroscientists believe is involved in emotion.

It was also discovered that the worms ignored their food, both during and after the shock. Normally, food is the priority for C. elegans, leading the researchers to conclude that the worms were capable of sensing the danger of the electric shock. 

Out of a basic version of fear, they ignored food and prioritized running away to safety, like if you were running past McDonald’s because someone is chasing you with a cattle prod – unlikely, but fear-inducing nonetheless.

Advertisement

The persistence of these behaviors, and the fact that the response was stronger under stronger stimulus, is the crux of why the research team concluded worms could have emotions; research suggests that persistence, scalability, and valence (the emotional value associated with a stimulus) are three of the key features of animal emotions.

The findings of the study could give further insights into human emotions and behaviors, too. Researchers observed that genetically mutated worms unable to produce neuropeptides – the worm equivalent to hormones – continued running for much longer periods of time after the electric shock. 

According to the study authors, this indicates that emotions could be controlled by genetic mechanisms. If this is the case, given that there are many human counterparts to the genes in C. elegans, it might open a new avenue of genetic research into human emotion and mood disorders.

The study is published in Genetics.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Harvard University to end investment in fossil fuels
  2. North Korea says call to declare end of Korean War is premature
  3. Asian stocks fall to near 1-year low as oil prices stoke inflation worries
  4. “Unique” Medieval Christian Art Discovered By Accident In Sudan Desert

Source Link: Worms Might Have Basic “Emotions” In Response To Electric Shocks

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Hayabusa2’s Target Asteroid Is 4 Times Smaller Than Thought – Can It Still Touch Down On It?
  • In 2011, Slavc The Wolf Journeyed 1,000 Miles To Begin Verona’s First Wolf Pack In 100 Years
  • Anyone Know What These Marine “Y-Larvae” Grow Into? Because Scientists Have No Clue
  • C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) Closest Earth Approach Is Next Month – Will We See It With The Naked Eye?
  • In 2013, A Volcanic Eruption Wiped Out Life On This Remote Island. Then, Somehow, Plants Reemerged
  • 1-Year-Old Orca Takes Out A Big Fat Seal In This Award-Winning – And Extremely Badass – Photo
  • Saturn And Neptune Will Reach Their Brightest In Days – And Look For Saturn’s Temporary Beauty Spot
  • Reindeer Bring A Gift Greater Than Any Of Santa’s – Hope Of A Stable Climate
  • If Deep-Sea Pressure Can Crush A Human Body, How Do Deep-Sea Creatures Not Implode?
  • Meet Ned: The Lonely Lefty Snail Looking For Love
  • “America Will Lead The Next Giant Leap”: NASA Announces New Milestone In Hunt For Exoplanets
  • What Did Neanderthals Sound Like?
  • One Star System Could Soon Dazzle Us Twice With Nova And Supernova Explosions
  • Unethical Experiments: When Scientists Really Should Have Stopped What They Were Doing Immediately
  • The First Humans Were Hunted By Leopards And Weren’t The Apex Predators We Thought They Were
  • Earth’s Passage Through The Galaxy Might Be Written In Its Rocks
  • What Is An Einstein Cross – And Why Is The Latest One Such A Unique Find?
  • If We Found Life On Mars, What Would That Mean For The Fermi Paradox And The Great Filter?
  • The Longest Living Mammals Are Giants That Live Up To 200 Years In The Icy Arctic
  • Entirely New Virus Detected In Bat Urine, And It’s Only The 4th Of Its Kind Ever Isolated
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version