Question about Sea Slug learning abilities

July 22, 1999
From: Matthew Harvey

This is a question from somebody who knows not a thing about sea slugs, but who recently attended a talk where I learnt a most incredible thing. It was claimed that if slug A learns a maze and is then chopped up and fed to slug B, slug B will 'know' the maze and can locate food with no conditioning period necessary. I (as only a psychology teacher & student) cannot imagine a mechanism which would allow this. Was I mislead or is this really the case? I'm dying to find out since such a phenomena would be truly remarkable.
Thank you in anticipation.
Matthew Harvey

psmmh@bath.ac.uk

Harvey, M., 1999 (Jul 22) Question about Sea Slug learning abilities. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/1092

Dear Matthew,

I answer as someone who knows little about recent research on learning! I think your speaker was referring to planarian flatworms. I can vaguely remember 30 years ago a group having their own 'journal' which I think was called the 'Worm Runners Digest' in which they were publishing results of what they considered heretical research showing that chopping up trained flatworms and feeding them to untrained flatworms decreased the time novices needed to learn their tasks. As my professor at the time grimly muttered 'if heathens learn of this they'll think they only need to eat missionaries to become Christians!'

Sea Hares have become very important lab animals for brain and learning research in recent years, but I don't think they are chopping them up. Have a look at my answer to Jonathan Choi's message where I list some publications and interesting websites on the subject.

If you do discover that Sea Slugs are in fact doing what you heard, could you let me know? It would be an interesting thing to have on the Forum.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman.

Rudman, W.B., 1999 (Jul 22). Comment on Question about Sea Slug learning abilities by Matthew Harvey. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/1092

Factsheet

Brain, behaviour and learning

Related messages

  1. Is Aplysia able to err?
    From: Diana Winter, June 6, 2006
  2. Learning by cannibalism
    From: Paul K Bohlander, May 7, 2005
  3. Training sea slugs
    From: Charles Sohl , June 10, 2003
  4. Computer based model of Aplysia learning
    From: Igal Raichelgauz, May 14, 2003
  5. Learning mechanisms in Aplysia
    From: Jose L. Cantero, February 7, 2003
  6. Behavioural patterns in species of Chromodoris
    From: David Thompson, January 1, 2003
  7. Re: Sea slug nervous system - computer model
    From: Cynthia Trowbridge, July 6, 2001
  8. Sea slug nervous system - computer model
    From: Linette Koren, July 3, 2001

Show factsheet and all related messages