DodoFinance Breaking News Made For You!
16 jul 2022 om 14:34 | Update: 7 uur geleden
Insects can eventually feel pain and suffer from it. The researchers write this in the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences after reviewing several studies. Insect brains are said to have the same “cerebral controls” that humans and mammals use when they feel pain.
By: Georgia EastIn the study, published last week, the scientists write that insects “may exhibit physical responses and brain controls when in pain, and may also ignore them to survive.”
Insects show complex responses to nociception, researchers say. It is the ability to detect tissue damage. Nociception basically causes people and animals to have a reflex response when they feel something painful, like quickly withdrawing your hand when you touch something hot.
“Reflexes exist in relatively simple animals like worms and don’t necessarily mean they are in pain,” lead author Matilda Gibbons told the paper. news week. Gibbons and his co-authors therefore decided to investigate whether insects are actually able to feel pain.
“Insects are likely to feel pain”
In addition to these basic reflex reactions, organisms such as mammals also exhibit so-called brain controls in nociception, such as a nerve response felt as pain. This helps the animal react appropriately to the situation that is causing tissue damage and thus increase its own chances of survival.
Another well-known response to nociception is that the body produces opiates, which allow an animal to temporarily ignore pain if it improves its chances of survival. An example of this is a human soldier who can fight for a while despite serious injuries.
After studying several insects, it was discovered that the insect brain also has cerebral controls that dampen pain responses.
“We can’t ask these animals about their pain, or tell if they’re in pain from their facial expressions, which can be done in dogs, for example,” says Gibbons. “But the presence of the brain controls we discovered makes it very plausible that insects feel pain.”
Research can impact human consumption
Researchers’ findings may also have an ethical impact. “Insects are often exposed to painful substances, for example in agriculture or research, and probably also feel pain as a result,” the researchers write.
They also refer to the growing popularity of eating insects. “The United Nations has been advising for some time to switch from traditional farming to insect farming for human consumption.”
But the UN did so on the assumption that insects do not suffer, the researchers write. “We need to avoid making ethical mistakes again, like with mass battery cages with chickens, but this time with insects. People need to understand that insects can feel pain and suffer from it.”
