Let’s be honest, in our eyes nature seems almost magical. His mysteries and his creations are so full of surprises that it almost makes us wonder who knows which spells. Researchers, on the other hand, know that behind every incredible discovery there is no magic, but a rational explanation. And that’s why they’re obsessed with it right now, for example sea snails.
Well yes: It seems that this marine invertebrates, so named because of their resemblance to land snails, have much more evolved abilities than previously thought. Of particular note is Aplysia Californica, a species widespread in the Northeast Pacific.
The California sea slug and its potential
Before proceeding, we need to make some clarifications. As we can well imagine, there are really a lot of sea snails here. With these words we tend to indicate the majority of slugs, snails, that is, without a shell or with a very small or inner shell. These sea creatures are numerous and take on different body shapes and sizes. However, Aplysia californica has been observed for some time for various reasons.
Basically it has one really interesting nervous system. It consists of 20,000 large and easily identifiable neurons with cell bodies up to 1 millimeter in size. This isn’t a particularly complex system, beware, and yet it appears that Aplysia Californica is capable of implementing a number of complicated processes that it apparently shouldn’t even be able to imagine.
Aplysia californica, a “noble” sea slug
It is precisely because of this property that Aplysia Californica was studied in the laboratory. The first scientist to deal with it was the Nobel laureate Eric Kandelwho, after a series of experiments, understood that the study of this sea gastropod had to be related to the field of sea gastropods Neurobiology of Learning and Memory.
In fact, he has proven that Aplysia Californica is capable of it unexpected diversity Learning systems and processes, both associative and non-associative. Learn through classical and operant awareness, addiction and conditioning. But what’s new today? And why have scientists reactivated themselves by conducting new research? Put simply, because some of the snail’s neurons seem to function the same way they do in humans.
Sea snails and long-term memory
Which neurons are we talking about? Of those related to memory, especially long-term memory. According to recent research conducted by an international team of scientists from New York University and published in the Scientific Journal of the National Academy of Sciences, the mechanisms triggered by neurons in Aplysia Californica are similar to those in humans Categorization and discrimination of events and from role models consequent.
This means that just like humans, sea snails of this species sort their experiences by intensity and importance, keeping memories alive based on the emotions or teachings they trigger/contain. Not only that, scientists have also found that sea snails are harmful Priority on “increasing the stimuli”or memories that have some kind of predictive power.
This means that people could also reason in this sense, not simply by “accumulating” memories, but distinguishing them by what they derive from them. A great step forward in a field that is still extremely mysterious, that of memory and memories.