Can the fish feel happy? Scientists say yes, and they can pity it

If you are asked to portray the creature having time of your life, then a fish is probably not the first animal that comes to mind.

But new research challenges that perception, suggesting that some fish not only seek enjoyable experiences, but can remember them and pity them.

“Most people think of fish that he is almost like an inferior vertebrae,” said a behavioral physiologist Marta Sorece at the University of Porto in Portugal. As it happens Host Nil Koxle.

Historically, sores say, research on fish is busy with negative – how stressed they are, and how much.

One in Study published earlier this month in the proceedings of Royal Society BSores and his team took a different view that is rarely discovered in aquatic animals.

They wanted to know: Can the fish look good? Do they experience something for bliss?

As a result, Sores said, there is a step towards the other, “normal” vertebrae such as cats and dogs.

What did they get?

Saures study mutuality, or interaction between species that benefit both sides.

In Coral Reefs, she says, one of the most attractive examples Bluestrak Cleaner Vrass, a smooth silver fish with a bold black strip and threadfin butterflyfish, with a yellow and white species are accompanied by a striking black mark.

Cleaner Vras feeds on the parasites found on the butterfish skin, while the butterfish receives a free grooming session. These meetings are held in a nominated “Cleaning Station,” regions, where the fish is for a quick spruce-up.

But Sorece and his team suspected that these interactions could have more than that of cleanliness.

He had earlier shown that during cleaning, cortisol levels – a major stress hormone – was dropped into the fish. This led to a new question: Can this cleanliness be really good?

Researchers prepared a series of laboratory experiments using butterfish that were parasitic-free, which removed the health incentive from the equation.

He noticed that butterfish preferred to roam in the part of the tank where he had earlier interacted with a cleaner Vrasse.

“It will act like a happy memory,” said Sorece.

Fish, like humans, have an opioid system in their brain that controls pain and pleasure. Scientists wanted to know if this system played a role in the priority of fish for cleaning.

He injected butterfish with low doses of an opioid mimic, a morphine -like drug that stimulates pleasure receptors. Sores says that the attraction of fish in the cleaning area increased.

Then, he administered Naloxone, a drug that blocks opioid receptors – the same is used to reverse overdose in the same humans. This time, Sores says, butterfish showed no interest in the cleaning sector.

Finally, the team wanted to find out a subtle but significant difference: is there any difference between liked cleaning and wanting it?

To find out, they “put a little The doors and obstacles “in the tank, forcing the butterfish to navigate around the obstacles to reach the cleaner. Did the fish receive an opioid mimic or the inhibitor did not make any difference; they still float through the obstacles to get their groom.

“They are interested in ignoring those obstacles to get the cleaner,” said Sores.

Fish feelings are

Since the publication of the study, some scientists have questioned whether the conclusions are actually evidence of fish enjoyment.

Can we unevenly say that it is a pleasure in fish? I am not sure I would say it in those words. It said that it is very difficult to measure happiness in animals, period, let the fish go alone, “a biopsicologist from the University of Michigan, who was not involved in the study, said,” Susana Painna, who was stated by NPR.

Saures are not surprised carefully. She says that human observers can more easily describe emotions like mammals, such as dogs or primates.

Nevertheless, she encourages her conclusions that the fish changes its behavior in response to positive experiences.

“This is a good study of an attractive natural system,” Simon Reader, Professor of McGill University Associate Biology, told CBC in an email. “I think the results fit well with changing ideas how fish behaviors once thought that fish behavior is more flexible and complicated.”

Such evidence, sores, say, it can affect how the fish is treated in aquaculture and aquariums.

It is “about changing the way people see the fish,” he said.