The octopus has an extremely complex brain and cognitive abilities that are unlike anything else. It has more in common with animals than with insects. The neural and cognitive complexity of these animals could be a result of a similarity between the human brain and the animals.
The research shows that the same genes that are active in the human brain are also active in the brain of two different species of octopus. The secret of the intelligence of these fascinating organisms could be discovered by this discovery.
More than 45% of the human genome is composed of transposons, so-called "jumping genes" that can be copied and pasted. Mobile elements have lost their ability to move and are silent. Some are inactive because they have accumulated Mutations, while others are intact but blocked by cellular defense mechanisms. From an evolutionary point of view, the fragments and broken copies of transposons can still be useful.
The most relevant are those that are in a hundred copies in the human genome and potentially active. In the past, LINEs' activity was thought to be a remnant of the evolutionary processes that involved these mobile elements, but recent evidence shows that their activity is regulated in the brain. Many scientists believe that LINE transposons are associated with cognitive abilities such as learning and memory, and that they are active in the hippocampus, the most important structure of our brain for neural control of learning processes.
Most of the inactive genes in our genome are found in the octopus. The researchers focused on the ability of the transposons to copy-and-paste, and found that part of the brain crucial for the cognitive abilities of these animals. Thanks to the use of next generation sequencing techniques, the discovery was made possible.
According to Remo Sanges, director of the Computational Genomics laboratory, the discovery of an element of the LINE family is very significant because it adds support to the idea that these elements have a specific function. More than twenty researchers from all over the world were involved in the study.
A fascinating example of a LINE element in the seat of cognitive abilities is what Giuseppe Petrosino from Stazione Zoologica believes.
The LINE element is an interesting candidate to be studied to improve our knowledge on intelligence.
More information: Giuseppe Petrosino et al, Identification of LINE retrotransposons and long non-coding RNAs expressed in the octopus brain, BMC Biology (2022). DOI: 10.1186/s12915-022-01303-5 Journal information: BMC Biology
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