Scientists have figured out a way to read the minds of people in a way that is easy to understand.
With a bit of genetic tinkering, we can now see how the tiny see-through jellyfish's brain cells work together to make movements like grabbing and eating prey.
Clytia hemisphaerica is a perfect model for this type of behavior. The nervous system of this specific species of jellyfish can easily be seen under a microscope.
Its transparent body only contains 10,000 neurons, which makes it easier to track neural messages.
The researchers genetically modified the C. hemisphaerica jellyfish so that they glowed when activated.
The Jellyfish nervous systems were developed 500 million years ago. Compared to the brains of animals today, the neurons in these fossils are arranged in a simpler way.
There is no centralized system for coordinating all of the creature's movements.
The new research suggests that the C. hemisphaerica's brain is laid out in an umbrella-like network. The slices are almost like a pie.
Each of these slices is connected to a tentacle by the bell. When the jellyfish's arms detect and capture prey, like brine shrimp, the neurons in this one slice are activated in a specific sequence.
Weissbourd/DeGiorgis is the name.
Clytia hemisphaerica is seen from above with its outer edges arranged uniformly.
The edge of the pie slice is where the mouth of the jellyfish is located.
This causes the edge of the pie slice to turn towards the mouth. The mouth points towards the food. The behavior is shown in the video.
Issbourd
A brine shrimp is being brought to its mouth by a jellyfish.
The authors found that almost all of the jellyfish tried to transfer their food to the brine shrimp within a minute. The brine shrimp were eaten by the creatures.
Researchers deleted a type of RFa+ neurons on the edge of the pie slice to figure out which ones triggered the domino effect. The asymmetric inward folding of the bell did not happen when they did this.
The authors write "So," in the returnURL. Swimming and crumpling were unaffected, suggesting that other neural cell types control these behaviors.
Researchers began removing body parts to see how the mouth and bell communicate with each other.
The creatures kept trying to get food from their tentacles to their mouths after the mouths were removed.
The mouth could still turn towards the food source even after the tentacles of a jellyfish were removed.
The findings suggest that certain jellyfish behaviors are coordinated through different groups of functionally organized neurons.
The network that connects the bell to the mouth could also connect to the stomach.
The authors of the study found that when the jellyfish were deprived of food, they captured prey faster than when they weren't hungry.
This shows that the jellyfish is aware of its needs and is putting other feeding networks on high alert.
The authors suggest that if this view is correct, coordinated behaviors in organisms lacking a central brain may have emerged by duplication and modification of smaller modules to form functionally interacting super-modules.
How these interactions are achieved is not yet known.
The study was published in the journal Cell.
