Let’s take a break from covid 19-related news and try to have a bit of fun checking out what else is going on these days.
It’s been just revealed that new research that’s been published in Current Biology reveals the fact that experts at Johns Hopkins University dosed a species of octopus with MDMA, and the octopuses seemed to enjoy it.
The experiment was undertaken in order to study how serotonin is used to promote social behavior.
Original study and its results
Vice.com notes that the prosocial effects of MDMA, which is closely related to the recreational drug ecstasy, is well documented in human subjects.
According to the same online publication, this often leads to feelings of emotional connection and is currently the subject of late-stage FDA trials for treating PTSD, anxiety, and other mental disorders.
“When a human takes MDMA, it binds to a serotonin transporter in the brain to do its magic. As it turns out, the gene for encoding this serotonin transporter is also found in certain species of octopuses, despite their evolutionary lineage being separated from our own by over 500 million years.”
The same notes continue and reveal the following:
“Although octopuses are generally considered to be solitary, asocial animals, the presence of this gene for encoding MDMA’s principle binding site suggested that octopuses might be susceptible to the prosocial effects of MDMA as well.”
Check out some of the findings that this study managed to give people.
“Despite anatomical differences between octopus and the human brain, we’ve shown that there are molecular similarities in the serotonin transporter gene.”
This is what Gul Dolen, a researcher at Johns Hopkins, said in a statement.
He continued and said the following:
“These molecular similarities are sufficient to enable MDMA to induce prosocial behaviors in octopuses.”
Make sure to check out more data on this interesting subject.
