Veronique Greenwood, Brainless Jellyfish Demonstrate Learning Ability, NYTimes, Sept. 22, 2023. From the article:
Researchers who were not involved in the study called the results a significant step forward in understanding the origins of learning. “This is only the third time that associative learning has been convincingly demonstrated in cnidarians,” a group that includes sea anemones, hydras and jellyfish, said Ken Cheng, a professor at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, who studies the animals. “And this is the coolest demonstration, replete with physiological data.”
The results also suggest that box jellyfish possess some level of short-term memory, because they can change their behavior based on past experience, said Michael Abrams, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies the neuroscience of jellyfish sleep. He wonders how long the box jellies remember what they’ve learned. If they are taken out of the tank for an hour and then returned to it, do they have to learn what to do all over again? [...]
They wonder, too, whether the capacity to learn is universal among nerve cells, regardless of whether they are part of a brain. It might explain their peculiar persistence in the tree of life.
More at the link.
Q: Are they conscious? Do they have minds, little tiny ones?
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