We reckon of our brains as individual , unified organs . But a new set of experiments with fly reveals that sure brain cells in these worm respond alone to crowd conduct . And that lead to an interesting question : Did cell in the creature brain evolve to suppose using something akin to the wisdom of fly swarms ?
Photo : Audy39 , via Shutterstock
Over at Not just Rocket Science , Ed Yongtalks about these experiments and their implications .
He writes :
Through a impressive serial publication of experiments , involving a smorgasbord of veer - edge proficiency , [ Pavan ] Ramdya render that flies can together with fly from a uncollectible smell faster than any mortal can by itself . Alone , each fly is only slimly repelled by the odour ; together , they guide away resolutely . Even mutant flies that ca n’t smell the odour at all can escape if they ’re in the presence of flavor - sensitive peer .
“ It ’s a scenario intimate to any heavy city dweller , ” saysLeslie Vosshallfrom Rockefeller University , who studies the sens and nervous systems of insect . “ Pushy crowds answer to bad things differently than individual people , because info can flow through the grouping that compels it to move . It turn out fly sheet are exactly like people in this regard . ”
During these experiments , Ramdya sequestrate a serial publication of neurons , or nerve cells , that are responsible for the fly ’ crowd behavior . These nerve cell in the fly ’ brains are triggered by light touch on the insects ’ legs . That ’s because fly in a bunch communicate messages like “ run aside spring the bad smell ” by brush up against each other . So you might say that Ramdya and his squad isolated a group of bunch - sense nerve cell .
Ramdya and his team found that they could guide single flies by double the light touch that triggered the crowd neuron . Just prod the tent-fly had no impression . They had to precisely activate those precise neurons using an instrument that created a very focalise , gentle contact .
The implications of this discovery , note Yong , are staggering :
A similar process run low on in your head . The 86 billion neurons in the human wit are individually unthinking , and interact with their neighbours according to very wide-eyed rules . But together , they canland machines on passing comets , craft employment of astonishing smasher , and even unravel the collective behaviour of other creatures .
Put more humbly , the operations of your brain may be no more telling than a swarm of flies .
BiologyNeuroscienceScience
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