The possibility that insects experience pain is a frontier question at the intersection of behaviour, cognition and philosophy of mind. Interest has been fuelled not only by anatomical discoveries but also by expanding behavioural and comparative evidence. Leading frameworks emphasize behavioural indicators of pain-like experience such as flexible, targeted responses to harm beyond reflexive...
The psychedelic mushroom Psilocybe cubensis is cultivated worldwide for recreational and medicinal use. Described initially from Cuba in 1906, there has been substantial debate about its origin and diversification. The prevailing view is that P. cubensis was inadvertently introduced to the Americas when cattle were introduced to the continent from Africa and Europe (approx. 1500 CE), but that...
Starting from the early 2010s, several studies have shown that a short period of monocular deprivation in adult volunteers transiently shifts ocular dominance in favour of the deprived eye. We compiled a meta-analysis of 73 such studies and found that the shift of ocular dominance was reliably observed, although with variable effect sizes mainly associated with the duration of deprivation and...
Bodily organs such as the heart and the lungs play a crucial role in maintaining physiological homeostasis in a continuous closed-loop interaction with the brain. Beyond their vital role, recent developments have emphasized the remarkable contribution of bodily signals to high-level brain functions. A direct route by which bodily signals influence brain functioning is via modulation of...
Whether fishes are sentient beings remains an unresolved and controversial question. Among characteristics thought to reflect a low level of sentience in fishes is an inability to show stress-induced hyperthermia (SIH), a transient rise in body temperature shown in response to a variety of stressors. This is a real fever response, so is often referred to as 'emotional fever'. It has been...
Across animals and plants, numerous metabolic and defensive adaptations are a direct consequence of symbiotic associations with beneficial microbes. Explaining how these partnerships are maintained through evolutionary time remains one of the central challenges within the field of symbiosis research. While genome erosion and co-cladogenesis with the host are well-established features of...
There are two highly interconnected clusters of visually responsive areas in the primate cortex. These two clusters have relatively few interconnections with each other, though those interconnections are undoubtedly important. One of the two main clusters (the dorsal stream) links the primary visual cortex (V1) to superior regions of the occipito-parietal cortex, while the other (the ventral...