Scientists Find Ecstasy Makes Octopuses 'Gentle and Cuddly'
Would you like to cuddle an octopus? Turns out, all those tentacles really are great for hugging. At least, that is, when the party gets going.
A study published in Current Biology in conjunction with Johns Hopkins University and the Marine Biological Laboratory shows that octopuses (octopi?), when given the party drug MDMA, also known as ecstasy or Molly, become much more “cuddly” than they are when sober.
Of course, one might assume that all creatures are more cuddly when taking ecstasy, since it drastically increases the activity of serotonin and dopamine, but the finding is a little more intriguing for octopuses. Unlike more socially inclined humans, the mighty octopus is a far more solitary creature — definitely not one for raving under strobe lights.
The experiment conducted, Fortune reported, involved placing a “hand-sized” octopus in the center chamber of a three-chambered tank. On one side there was a colorful object and on the other was another octopus, protected inside a small cage.
Fascinatingly, while sober, the octopus spent more time with the object, but when it was given a mild dose with MDMA, it favored the other octopus.
According to NPR, scientists chose a specifically low dose of MDMA, since higher doses gave a profoundly different result. “They really didn't like it. They looked like they were freaked out," Johns Hopkins neuroscientist Gül Dölen told NPR. "They were just taking these postures of super hypervigilance. They would sit in the corner of the tank and stare at everything."
But at lower doses, Dölen told NPR that the octopus was “essentially hugging” the other one.
What does this mean for science (other than octopuses are cuter than we thought)? Judit Pungor, a neuroscientist at the University of Oregon, told NPR, “I was absolutely shocked that it had this effect...They have this huge complex brain that they've built, that has absolutely no business acting like ours does — but here they show that it does. The fact that they induced this very sort of gentle, cuddly behavior is really pretty fascinating.”
“It just shows us how much we don't know and how much there is out there to understand,” Zachary Mainen, a neuroscientist at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Portugal, told NPR.
Perhaps we’re not so different from the octopuses after all.
People on Twitter can certainly relate to these cooler, chiller cephalopods.
Octopi are the real cuddlefish ???? https://t.co/fCHeQclPpp
— CulinaryPen (@CulinaryPen) September 21, 2018
"Octopuses are almost entirely antisocial... However, octopuses given the drug known as MDMA (or ecstasy, E or Molly) wanted to spend more time close to other octopuses and even hugged them." ???????????? https://t.co/92HhvbbGWl
— Serena McMahon (@serenaamcmahon) September 20, 2018
Why did scientists give ecstasy to octopuses? It wasn't in the name of peace, love, unity and respect and a hope that the cephalopods would emerge from their tanks to wait for an eight-tentacled D.J. to drop the bass. https://t.co/IPtN3bdW7a
— NYT Science (@NYTScience) September 21, 2018
“People are like, ‘Have you got any pictures of octopuses holding glow sticks?’, which I kind of ignore because that wasn’t really our objective.” | MDMA makes octopuses more sociable ???????? https://t.co/03UrmFp6fH
— Jono Bruun (@jonobruun) September 20, 2018
Fascinating. https://t.co/CMqbOQcRVl pic.twitter.com/ik24tNxE1s
— Alex O'Neal (@alexfiles) September 20, 2018
This is such an amazing story of evolutionary neuropharmacology! "Despite their very different, oddly shaped brains, octopuses seem to react to ecstasy just like humans and mice," @edyong209 reports https://t.co/0qjbYaJEaA
— Ted Price of the Dussor/Price Lab (@UTDPainLab) September 21, 2018
This is your octopus. This is your octopus on drugs....Any questions?
#Cuddly #MDMA https://t.co/pazfDQg9z1— Sam Rosenthal (@BlackTapeSam) September 20, 2018
I love how someone thought "we MUST use funds to find out what octopuses are like high." For SCIENCE. https://t.co/9E8RS5O00S
— Kimberly Yam (@kimmythepooh) September 20, 2018
I read this so I could learn why scientists were dosing octopuses with Molly. Not sure I got an answer other than “cuz.” https://t.co/hQBmhppDzn
— Max L Hrenda (@MaxLHrenda) September 20, 2018
I for one would like to welcome our new happy octopus overlords. https://t.co/7o5FahVGx4
— Rob Archer ???? (@RobArcher) September 20, 2018