Insects have long seen instinctively mindless robotic reactions to the world and to all its impulses.

But every time we look closely, we find surprisingly complex features Bees communicate in dance to the Incredible ant collaboration And now we have proof of that. These little creatures that lead our world He may also feel pain.

Nosespation – Identifies unpleasant stimuli in the emotional nervous system, including chemical burns, sharp cuts, and pressure sores – Creates a variety of physiological and behavioral responses in animals. One of these may be a feeling of pain.

Insects are well documented for their immune response to potentially harmful contact.

Moreover, the fruit fly, which is commonly studied in the 2019 experiments, Drosophila, Symptoms of chronic pain were observed After researchers removed the fruit fly leg. After the fruit fly is completely cured, researchers have found that the fruit fly has the opposite effect.

This has been the case with the writers since the Fly. “Pain Brake” Method In the nerve shaft. The pain brake mechanism relieves pain, but in fruit flies, when the nerves are over-stimulated, the brake is completely killed.

However, even bacteria Avoid unpleasant stimuli, Identifying pain in another life is not as easy as seeing a negative reaction to a harmful relationship. We need a complex physiological system that connects our brain to recognize pain Maybe even emotions.

In mammals, nociceptors send pain signals to our brains, causing negative and positive, physical and emotional pain.

Studies have shown that pain relief (nociception) and pain can be controlled independently of each other, and have identified specific systems for each rule.

These systems have not been fully identified in insects.

“One of the hallmarks of human disease awareness is that it can be corrected by neurological signals from the brain,” said Mattida Gibbon, a neurologist at Queen Mary University. Speak News Week.

“Soldiers do not forget that they are sometimes seriously injured on the battlefield because body operations suppress the signal of consciousness.

Gibbon and colleagues have reviewed scientific literature and found a lot of evidence that this method exists in insects.

When they are deficient in genes Opioid receptors that control pain within usThey produce other proteins that can serve the same purpose in stressful situations.

Behavioral data show that insects have molecular mechanisms that respond to damage to their local and central nervous systems. For example, the presence of a sugar solution Bumblebee eliminates normal protection against unpleasant stimuli.

Anatomically, insects have neurons descending from the brain to the nerve endings.

Moreover, it even uses tobacco horn worms Reduction characteristics After wounding, as a decoration.

Each of these things may not be defined in isolation, but when taken together, it seems to indicate that insects have a similar mechanism of action.

“We argue that insects have central nervous system control over nociception based on behavioral, molecular, and anatomical neuroscience evidence,” the group concludes. press release. “Such control is compatible with the existence of pain experience.”

As insects are large and diverse, the complexity of their individual rules and their feelings of pain can vary widely.

The prospect of their illness, however, raises moral questions that are important for further investigation – especially considering the mass farming of these animals in the future.

A.D. We are at a critical juncture in how to feed humans, which is projected to reach 10 billion by 2050, the researchers said. Tell them.

“Although normal animal husbandry contributes significantly Climate change, United Nations recommends mass production of edible insects. However, the ethical implications have not been well assessed because animal welfare does not cover insects. “

This study was published in Processes of the Royal Society B biological Science.