The brain of the octopus does not control its movement; arms have a mind of their own – Scientists
Three Israeli researchers – Guy Levy and Binyamin Hochner of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Tamar Flash of the Weizmann Institute of Science have published a report in the journal Current Biology suggesting that the octopus has a central brain that does not really control the movements of its eight arms because the arms seem to have a mind of their own.
The acute intelligence and camouflaging abilities of the octopus have never been in question, but the fluidity with which it moves its eight arms simultaneously has been a thing of wonderment to marine scientists, and the three Israeli scientists among others set out to fully analyze and record how the octopus intentionally coordinates its arms when moving along.
The researchers established that the octopus has a head and eyes that have right and left sides – making it bilateral in a sort of way. And just like a starfish, the arms of the octopus seem to emanate from its mouth. At about 45 degrees to the angle its eyes are facing, you find that the octopus might prefer to move in a particular direction – not forgetting that the position of its eyes gives it a good view of its environment.
But then, the researchers found that the octopus can actually move in any direction without the need to change its head position, and this is essentially because the head and body can move independent of the arms. The arms of the creature shorten and elongate to move it along, just like an inchworm.
The scientists figure the brain of the sea creature controls which arm to move, but its central nervous system actually controls the real movement of the arms; and this is amazing considering the fact that an octopus has about 170 million neurons, and its nervous system has about 330 million neurons.
“Nature has found a simple solution to a complicated problem,” Dr. Levy said. “This is an amazing animal.”
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