Eleanor - And more than that, they did a follow on from that, which was even more cool; so they trained it on on one particular ball, and they had other balls in the area which they'd glued down while they were learning, but then in the second round they unglued the balls and the bee would learn the concepts, and then would apply it to closer balls, so then they would perform the same action, but on a set. Chris - Oh I know why you're gonna go with that, because they come out on prime number years don't they? I think it's just mind boggling. I hope there would. Dan, a favourite insect? For example, one research group explored how honeybees and wasps recognize human faces. The findings also hold the potential to help guide humanity’s response to the ongoing mass insect extinctions – the insect apocalypse – that threaten our ecosystems and food supplies. They cannot, however, feel grief or jealousy, they say. Through neural impulses from the antennae, the insect may collect odor and taste cues, tactile sensations, or even environmental information such as temperature and humidity. University of York animal behaviourist Eleanor Drinkwater got stuck in to this question from Mariana... Eleanor - I have been asked this before and this is always a really hard question because I am incredibly biased, and I believe that all insects are incredibly intelligent in all sorts of different ways, and that we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what insects can do. Who is fitter: rugby players or footballers? Featured in WIRED and selected as a Spotlight 2019 finalist, the resulting article collection has implications for psychology, neuroscience, engineering and computer science. This is the direction they will take if the topic wins the Spotlight 2019 award. These mushroom bodies comprise three regions: The neurons here are called the Kenyon cells. But if I was to choose one based on research about an individual who is pretty clever, it might have to be the bees I'm afraid, and there's some really cool research that has shown that bees can tell apart, the difference between different painting styles. Even tiny insects have brains, though the insect brain does not play as important a role as human brains do. So social learning. Dan - I don’t know, I suppose possibly the butterfly. Maybe there'll be a follow up paper. They’re just an insect. (That compares to about 86 billion neurons in a human brain.). Receiving nearly 40,000 views, this macabre topic clearly strikes a chord. Bobby - Exactly. But also they can tell the difference between people's faces and they can remember a face for two days which is incredible. Insects are brighter than you think. The relative simplicity of insect brains has even sparked a novel research field – connectomics – that the Editors say is revolutionizing researchers’ understanding of the brain and its functional properties. “We would like to dedicate a part of the conference to the question of what our understanding of insect psychology means for research ethics and insect conservation.”, Martin GiurfaCentre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, Toulouse, Jeffrey RiffellUniversity of Washington, Seattle, Lars ChittkaQueen Mary University of London, Frontiers Home Research Topics Spotlight Award, © 2019 Frontiers Media S.A. All Rights Reserved. So they weren't just learning “oh this ball goes in the hole”, they could like generalise, which is incredible if you think about it. “The exploration of the brain mechanisms mediating phenomena such as counting, learning by observation and tool use – all recently discovered in insects – is key to understanding the very nature of intelligence, in all animals, not just insects.”. And you think, this tiny insect, and you know I can't even find my way around London and these things find their way. So if you show them a Monet and a Picasso, you can get them to learn the differences and then be able to generalise to other paintings. I always tell my students that on a Friday afternoon these cicadas are probably smarter than my students on Friday at two o'clock. The protocerebrum contains the mushroom bodies, two bunches of neurons that make up a significant part of the insect brain. The insect brain resides in the head, located dorsally, or to the back. What Does the Brain's Cerebral Cortex Do? There’s a provocative thought. Suggest a Research Topic . Among the most surprising findings is that cockroaches have not just one, but multiple navigation systems in their brains. Covid-19: saving lives vs saving the economy? The first lobe, called the protocerebrum, connects via nerves to the compound eyes and the ocelli, which are light-sensing organs that detect movement and controls sight. Beyond continuing to highlight breakthroughs in the underlying mechanisms of insect cognition, their Spotlight conference would expand to include philosophy, neural connectomics, artificial intelligence and robotics, as well as the moral implications of this area of research. Martin Giurfa, Jeffrey Riffell and Lars Chittka brought together an international team of researchers to explore how insects manage to do so much with so few neurons. "They plan, but don't imagine," says Klein. Why are face coverings not working against coronavirus? The tritocerebrum also connects the brain to the stomodaeal nervous system, which functions separately to innervate most of the insect's organs. Various ganglia throughout the body control most of the overt behaviors we observe in insects. It has actually been shown that insects are highly intelligent in certain circumstances. Insect brains are tiny, but their miniature neural networks nevertheless hold lessons for artificial intelligence, robotics – and even illuminate how human brains operate and the very nature of intelligence.