Dr. Amy Courtney, Marine Biological Association, UK

Most neuroscience studies examine how complex brains control sophisticated behaviours using vertebrate models, which often share similar solutions due to their common evolutionary trajectory. Coleoid cephalopods, including octopus, squid and cuttlefish, provide a rare opportunity to explore alternative solutions. They evolved advanced cognitive abilities and large brains independently from vertebrates, allowing us to ask whether complex brains have shared principles or whether evolution has generated different solutions to similar computational challenges. Despite this unique evolutionary perspective, the molecular and neurochemical basis of cephalopod brain function remain largely unexplored.

In this seminar, I will present our recent work addressing this gap by investigating neurochemical signalling in the visual system of Octopus vulgaris hatchlings. We combined electrophysiological characterisation of octopus neurotransmitter receptors in Xenopus oocytes, fluorescent in situ hybridisation chain reaction to map receptor expression, and calcium imaging of acute brain slices during neurotransmitter application. Using these approaches, we identified novel cationic dopamine- and anionic acetylcholine-gated channels and found that they are likely playing key roles in visual processing. These findings reveal neurotransmitter signalling mechanisms that differ fundamentally from those in vertebrates and provide new insights into how independently evolved complex brains have diversified the molecular toolkit underlying neural communication.

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