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NI: Scientists confirm crab's memory of pain
New research published by a Queen’s University Belfast academic shows that crabs not only suffer pain, but that they also retain a memory of it. The study, which looked at the reactions of hermit crabs to small electric shocks, was carried out by Professor Bob Elwood and Mirjam Appel from the School of Biological Sciences at Queen’s and was published in the journal Animal Behaviour. Professor Elwood, who previously carried out a study showing that prawns feel pain, said his research highlighted the need to investigate how crustaceans are treated in the food industry.
Hermit crabs have no shell of their own, so they inhabit other structures, usually empty mollusc shells. Wires were attached to shells to deliver small shocks to the abdomen of some of the crabs within the shells. The only crabs that left their shells were those that had received shocks, indicating that the experience was unpleasant for them. This shows that central neuronal processing occurs rather than the response merely being a reflex.
The main aim of the experiment, however, was to deliver a shock just under the threshold that causes crabs to leave their shells to see what happened when a new shell was then offered. Crabs that had been shocked but had remained in their shell appeared to remember the experience of the shock, because they quickly moved towards the new shell, investigated it briefly, and were more likely to change to the new shell compared to those that had not been shocked.
Professor Elwood said that there has been a long debate about whether crustaceans, including crabs, prawns and lobsters, feel pain. This research demonstrates that it is not a simple reflex, but that crabs trade off their need for a quality shell with the need to avoid the harmful stimulus. Such trade-offs are seen in vertebrates, in which the response to pain is controlled with respect to other requirements. Humans, for example, may hold on to a hot plate that contains food, whereas they may drop an empty plate, showing that humans take differing motivational requirements into account when responding to pain. Trade-offs of this type have not been previously demonstrated in crustaceans.
The results are consistent with the idea of pain being experienced and remembered by these animals. According to Professor Elwood, in contrast to mammals, little protection is given to the millions of crustaceans that are processed in the fishing and food industries each day. It was added that more research is needed in this area, where a potentially very large problem is being ignored. With vertebrates one is asked to err on the side of caution, and this is certainly the approach that should also be taken with these crustaceans. |
Queen’s University Belfast press
release from 27th March 2009 |
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