1 00:00:01,800 --> 00:00:04,320 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio. 2 00:00:06,880 --> 00:00:09,760 Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff. I'm Lauren vogel Bomb In. Today's episode 3 00:00:09,800 --> 00:00:12,760 Speaker 1: is a classic from our archives. In this one, we 4 00:00:12,840 --> 00:00:16,840 Speaker 1: delve into the differing communication styles of squid. They can 5 00:00:16,880 --> 00:00:19,439 Speaker 1: create patterns on their skin to talk to each other 6 00:00:19,800 --> 00:00:21,759 Speaker 1: even when the parts of their brains that make the 7 00:00:21,800 --> 00:00:27,160 Speaker 1: talking happen are busy. Hey brain stuff, Lauren vogel Bomb here. 8 00:00:27,760 --> 00:00:31,160 Speaker 1: Caltech physicist Richard Feinman once said, if you think you 9 00:00:31,240 --> 00:00:36,080 Speaker 1: understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics. It's possible. 10 00:00:36,120 --> 00:00:38,320 Speaker 1: The same could be said about cephalopods, the group of 11 00:00:38,320 --> 00:00:43,159 Speaker 1: invertebrates that include octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish. The last ancestor 12 00:00:43,240 --> 00:00:45,720 Speaker 1: we shared with one of these living jello salads was 13 00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:48,920 Speaker 1: probably a worm of some kind. So our DNA is 14 00:00:48,960 --> 00:00:52,880 Speaker 1: basically nothing like their's, not that they care. They didn't 15 00:00:52,880 --> 00:00:55,920 Speaker 1: really do evolution the same way we did, but nevertheless 16 00:00:55,960 --> 00:01:01,320 Speaker 1: managed to independently evolve into uncannily clever camouflage artists with large, 17 00:01:01,360 --> 00:01:05,920 Speaker 1: complex brains, closed circulatory systems, and camera style eyes just 18 00:01:06,040 --> 00:01:10,479 Speaker 1: like ours, well not just like ours. The thing about 19 00:01:10,520 --> 00:01:14,160 Speaker 1: cephalopods is they've had five hundred million years of independent 20 00:01:14,200 --> 00:01:16,759 Speaker 1: evolution to figure out how to do things their own way. 21 00:01:17,280 --> 00:01:19,360 Speaker 1: Any test you can create to measure something in a 22 00:01:19,440 --> 00:01:23,199 Speaker 1: human intelligence, say, isn't going to work for an octopus, 23 00:01:23,240 --> 00:01:27,720 Speaker 1: which is why neurobiologists studying cephalopods have jobs not unlike 24 00:01:27,760 --> 00:01:30,600 Speaker 1: that of electricians figuring out the electrical grid on an 25 00:01:30,600 --> 00:01:35,360 Speaker 1: alien planet. We spoke with Dr Sabrina Pankey, an evolutionary 26 00:01:35,440 --> 00:01:39,160 Speaker 1: biologist in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Biomedical Sciences 27 00:01:39,200 --> 00:01:42,400 Speaker 1: at the University of New Hampshire. She said, we've known 28 00:01:42,480 --> 00:01:45,200 Speaker 1: for fifty years that the cephalopod brain is easily the 29 00:01:45,200 --> 00:01:49,280 Speaker 1: most complex among invertebrates, and also that they're dazzlingly intricate. 30 00:01:49,360 --> 00:01:53,960 Speaker 1: Body patterning behavior is controlled by motor centers in the brain. However, 31 00:01:54,240 --> 00:01:58,280 Speaker 1: the neural architecture has been much more enigmatic. Figuring out 32 00:01:58,320 --> 00:02:02,000 Speaker 1: the neural basis of complex behaviors is inherently difficult in 33 00:02:02,040 --> 00:02:05,080 Speaker 1: any animal, but trying to figure out how as squid 34 00:02:05,280 --> 00:02:09,040 Speaker 1: can completely change its body patterning in a matter of milliseconds, 35 00:02:09,160 --> 00:02:11,440 Speaker 1: or display one pattern to the squid on its left 36 00:02:11,639 --> 00:02:13,840 Speaker 1: and another to the one on its right, is a 37 00:02:13,919 --> 00:02:17,840 Speaker 1: sticky wicket. As you can imagine. One hypothesis has been 38 00:02:17,880 --> 00:02:22,080 Speaker 1: that body coloration is organized in the cephalopod brain somato topically, 39 00:02:22,560 --> 00:02:25,360 Speaker 1: that one specific part of the central nervous system is 40 00:02:25,400 --> 00:02:29,200 Speaker 1: solely responsible for controlling the patterning in a distinct patch 41 00:02:29,280 --> 00:02:32,600 Speaker 1: of skin. That's how it works in our mammalion cortex 42 00:02:32,680 --> 00:02:36,040 Speaker 1: after all. But a new study published in the Journal 43 00:02:36,080 --> 00:02:40,400 Speaker 1: of Neuroscience shows again cephalopods are not like us, and 44 00:02:40,760 --> 00:02:44,640 Speaker 1: are in fact very not like us. The research team 45 00:02:44,680 --> 00:02:48,000 Speaker 1: proposes its study subject, the oval squid, also known as 46 00:02:48,080 --> 00:02:51,680 Speaker 1: the big fin reef squid, achieves its skin patterning through 47 00:02:51,880 --> 00:02:57,000 Speaker 1: mosaic organization. That these squid actually use multiple motor centers 48 00:02:57,000 --> 00:02:59,680 Speaker 1: within the optic lobe of their brain to produce a 49 00:02:59,760 --> 00:03:04,000 Speaker 1: sin goal skin pattern like stripes, bands, or spots. The 50 00:03:04,040 --> 00:03:06,239 Speaker 1: fact that several parts of the brain work together it 51 00:03:06,360 --> 00:03:09,919 Speaker 1: wants to create a single display allows for greater complexity 52 00:03:09,960 --> 00:03:13,040 Speaker 1: in the resulting pattern. It would be like using multiple 53 00:03:13,120 --> 00:03:15,760 Speaker 1: keyboards to write the same document all at the same time. 54 00:03:16,240 --> 00:03:19,440 Speaker 1: We vertebrates just don't do things that way. Dr Chun 55 00:03:19,560 --> 00:03:23,200 Speaker 1: tin Chio, director of the Institute of Systems Neuroscience at 56 00:03:23,240 --> 00:03:26,160 Speaker 1: the National sing Hua University in Taiwan, and his co 57 00:03:26,280 --> 00:03:29,840 Speaker 1: author and student Sung Han Lieu think that because several 58 00:03:29,880 --> 00:03:32,320 Speaker 1: different areas of the optic lobe can be used to 59 00:03:32,360 --> 00:03:34,880 Speaker 1: display a single skin pattern in a specific body part 60 00:03:35,360 --> 00:03:39,160 Speaker 1: dark mantles, stripey tentacles, polka dot fins, that the squid 61 00:03:39,200 --> 00:03:42,280 Speaker 1: are able to flash about fourteen distinct patterns in the 62 00:03:42,280 --> 00:03:45,400 Speaker 1: blink of an eye. We tend to think of redundancy 63 00:03:45,520 --> 00:03:49,400 Speaker 1: as inefficient, but cephalopods have overlapping parts of their brains 64 00:03:49,440 --> 00:03:52,880 Speaker 1: to create specific patterns on specific body parts, meaning that 65 00:03:52,920 --> 00:03:54,920 Speaker 1: if one part of their brain is busy, they can 66 00:03:54,960 --> 00:03:58,560 Speaker 1: still flash information onto their bodies with a inspiring quickness. 67 00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:01,440 Speaker 1: Just think if you had a bunch of different parts 68 00:04:01,440 --> 00:04:03,760 Speaker 1: of your brain in charge of remembering a single word, 69 00:04:04,080 --> 00:04:08,240 Speaker 1: your word recall skills would be amazing, GEO said via email. 70 00:04:08,640 --> 00:04:11,720 Speaker 1: We think this research is particularly interesting because it shows 71 00:04:11,720 --> 00:04:15,320 Speaker 1: how squids can efficiently modulate the expression of individual body 72 00:04:15,320 --> 00:04:19,520 Speaker 1: pattern components, thus changing the appearance of their body color dynamically. 73 00:04:20,080 --> 00:04:23,080 Speaker 1: This allows the squids to quickly switch different body patterns 74 00:04:23,120 --> 00:04:26,200 Speaker 1: in visual communication. Thus it is sort of like an 75 00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:30,800 Speaker 1: alphabet visual language. The researchers think the color patterns displayed 76 00:04:30,800 --> 00:04:33,400 Speaker 1: by the squid are not only used as communication signals 77 00:04:33,400 --> 00:04:35,880 Speaker 1: to the same species, but are also used to hide 78 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:39,839 Speaker 1: or worn off other potential predators or prey. This research 79 00:04:39,880 --> 00:04:42,520 Speaker 1: also highlights the fact that though we vertebrates tend to 80 00:04:42,560 --> 00:04:45,840 Speaker 1: think we've got the best systems for doing everything, cephalopods 81 00:04:45,960 --> 00:04:48,039 Speaker 1: might be onto something, at least when it comes to 82 00:04:48,080 --> 00:04:52,520 Speaker 1: efficient communication. Panky said, the way these body patterns can 83 00:04:52,520 --> 00:04:56,000 Speaker 1: be created thanks to various combinations of brain centers activating 84 00:04:56,320 --> 00:04:59,840 Speaker 1: reminds me of word creation in a glutinative languages like German. 85 00:05:00,320 --> 00:05:03,359 Speaker 1: There is a linguistic mechanism to create compound words that 86 00:05:03,440 --> 00:05:07,000 Speaker 1: then take on new meaning. Maybe eventually will know enough 87 00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:09,520 Speaker 1: about the cephalopod brain that we can find out whether 88 00:05:09,560 --> 00:05:13,440 Speaker 1: squid learn word patterns by observation or if the information 89 00:05:13,520 --> 00:05:17,680 Speaker 1: is hardwired, and whether different populations speak in different patterns. 90 00:05:18,240 --> 00:05:21,279 Speaker 1: But for now, the researchers are focusing on learning how 91 00:05:21,360 --> 00:05:24,919 Speaker 1: visual information from the eyes regulates body patterning in the 92 00:05:24,960 --> 00:05:27,520 Speaker 1: squids when they are communicating with each other in their 93 00:05:27,600 --> 00:05:31,720 Speaker 1: natural environments. Geo said, this will be much more difficult 94 00:05:31,720 --> 00:05:40,280 Speaker 1: than anything we've shown so far. Today's episode is based 95 00:05:40,279 --> 00:05:42,960 Speaker 1: on the article secret alphabet of squid skin due to 96 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:46,000 Speaker 1: brains totally unlike our own on how stuff works dot Com. 97 00:05:46,120 --> 00:05:49,400 Speaker 1: Written by Jesslan Shields. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart 98 00:05:49,480 --> 00:05:51,599 Speaker 1: Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot Com, and 99 00:05:51,640 --> 00:05:55,279 Speaker 1: it's produced by Tyler Clang. For more podcasts my heart Radio, 100 00:05:55,520 --> 00:05:58,240 Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 101 00:05:58,279 --> 00:06:08,800 Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.