A new study found that Uter fish can remember the time, place, and time of certain events—until the last few days of their lives.
The researchers said that this is the first evidence that an animal’s memory of a specific event does not deteriorate with age.
Researchers at the Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Massachusetts And the University of Caen, France A memory test was performed on 24 common cuttlefish Sepia officinalis.
Half of them are 10-12 months old-not yet considered adult-and the other half are 22-24 months old, equivalent to a human being in their 90s.
The first author of the paper, Dr. Alexandra Schnell from the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge, said: “Cuttlefish can remember what they eat, where and when they eat, and use this to guide their future feeding decisions.
“Surprisingly, they did not lose this ability with age, despite showing other signs of aging, such as loss of muscle function and appetite.”
Humanity As they grow older, they gradually lose the ability to remember experiences that happened at a specific time and place, such as their dinner last Tuesday.
This is called episodic memory, and its decline is thought to be due to the degeneration of the part of the brain called the hippocampus.
However, the brain structure of cuttlefish is completely different from that of human beings. They do not have a hippocampus.
The vertical lobes of the cuttlefish brain are related to learning and memory.
This situation will not worsen until the last two to three days of animal life. Researchers say this may explain why the episodic memory of squid is not affected by age.
In this study, cuttlefish were first trained to approach a specific location in the aquarium marked with a black and white flag.
They then received training to understand that the two foods they usually eat are available at specific marked locations and after specific delays.
In one place, they waved a flag and offered a piece of prawns, which was a food they didn’t like very much.
They prefer live grass prawns, served in another place, where another flag is waved—but once every three hours. This was repeated for four weeks.
The researchers then tested the cuttlefish’s memories of what foods were available, when and where.
To make sure they didn’t just learn a pattern, the two feeding locations each day are unique.
All cuttlefish will observe the food that appears first on each flag and use this to determine which foraging spot is best for each subsequent waving of the flag.
This shows that unlike humans, the episodic memory of squid does not decline with age.
Dr. Schnell said: “In the memory task, old cuttlefish are as good as young cuttlefish-in fact, many old cuttlefish do better in the test phase.
“We think this ability may help cuttlefish in the wild remember who they mate with, so they don’t return to the same partner.”
Cuttlefish only reproduce at the end of their lives. Researchers believe that remembering who, where and when they mate will help them spread genes widely by mating with as many partners as possible.
The research was published in the Royal Society B Journal of Biological Sciences.
