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Jellyfish have been genetically modified so that their neurons glow when stimulated: the mysteries of the human brain can be solved by these animals
Among all the mysteries surrounding the human body, one of the most fascinating to scientists is understanding how the brain works. Knowing what is activated in our brain when we make a decision, receive a stimulus, or move a muscle. For example, we’ve found out it’s not true that we only use 10% of our brains. The latest jellyfish brain research could help neuroscientists around the world.
Research on neuroscientists
The human brain has 100 billion neurons, making up 100 trillion connections with each other. A very complicated puzzle to be solved. But clues to solving it could come from an infinitely simpler creature: jellyfish.
For this study, scientists chose Clytia hemisphaerica, a jellyfish species about a centimeter in diameter when fully grown. Scientists from Caltech in the US have created a kind of toolkit to work on her genetic makeup.
Using these specially designed tools for Clytia, researchers genetically modified her: her neurons now glow with fluorescent light when activated. And because jellyfish are transparent, researchers can observe the neural activity of animals in their daily lives. So basically what happens to her brain when the jellyfish moves, feeds, escapes from predators, and how its neurons coordinate.
What Jellyfish Can Tell Us About the Human Brain
Jellyfish are extremely anomalous animals when it comes to research. At the genetic level, they do not resemble any other animal. Worms, flies, fish, and mice are more similar: even genetically speaking, the worm is more human-like than jellyfish.
Pisces thus allows scientists to ask questions and find more, in a sense, “abstract” answers: is this how neurobiology works? Are its principles common to all types of nervous systems, even those most distant from humans? What could the original nervous system look like?
The big difference between our brains and jellyfish brains is that ours are concentrated in one place, under the skull, while theirs are spread throughout the body like a web. The different “parts” of the jellyfish can run autonomously without central control.
This seems to be a successful strategy, evolutionarily, as the jellyfish have survived geological epochs and continental upheavals. The researchers wondered how this brain works and took an example from Clytia’s eating habits: when this jellyfish grabs the victim, it brings the tentacle to the mouth and leans forward at the same time. How does her distracted brain coordinate these movements?
By studying the reactions of the light chains, scientists found that the scattered brain is divided into sectors: when the jellyfish grabs the victim, the sector closest to the tentacle is activated, pushing it towards the mouth. At the same time, a subnet of neurons produces a molecule that causes the body to bend forward.
The complex system we now know about thanks to a study and working model created by Caltech scientists. And which in the future could be used to understand how the brains of more complex species work.
