Natures wonders: spider brains (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, April 22, 2015, 01:50 (3502 days ago) @ David Turell

Turns out they are amazingly bright and with almost 360 degree vision in jumping spiders:-https://www.braindecoder.com/spider-brain-great-mystery-in-a-tiny-head-1094514994.html-"'Spiders are very smart, that's why we're studying them," says Ronald Hoy, a professor of neurobiology and behavior at Cornell University. "They use visual cues to steer by, and the kind of mazes that they can solve is considered to be pretty impressive for an invertebrate." -In terms of wiring, however, spiders follow the same sorts of rules found in both vertebrates and invertebrates. -"'If you look at a section of spider brain you'll find that there are clusters of cell bodies with a cabling of the axons going from one part to another part and that's true of insects and that's true of us too," Hoy says. "Things are just more compact in a spider's brain because you're packing a normal head brain into the thoracic ganglion." -"Another amazing feature of some spiders is their sophisticated visual systems. Jumping spiders, for example, have eight eyes, giving them a nearly 360 degree panoramic view, with two front-facing eyes that are as acute as human eyes. The visual combo allows these hunters to pursue and pounce on prey, much like cats do. But an interesting question for scientists is how the spider brain actually processes the visual information.
Hoy is part of one of the first teams to record the activity of neurons in a spider brain, a monumental feat because the insides of spider bodies are under pressure, like air in a balloon, and even the smallest incisions could make everything squirt out, leaving the critter to die. Using a very fine electrode that made a fast-healing hole in the spider's head, Hoy's team successfully punctured the tiny brain of a jumping spider and recorded neuron responses associated with visual cues, such as flies, their natural prey. This gave the team an unprecedented look into the microscopic brain that processes information from the jumping spider's eight eyes."