“one of the main ways we’ve learned about octopus brains is through lesioning studies. This is when scientists intentionally cause brain damage to the creature, precisely destroying clusters of neurons, to see what stops working. In fact, ablative brain surgery is largely how early neuroscientists gained their bearings when first mapping the brain; this involved selectively excising certain sections of animal brains and observing what limbs or body parts ceased functioning. But brains are extremely complex, and this blunt way of smashing neural connections oversimplifies how brains work. Fortunately, today we have better ways of figuring out how cognition occurs — in particular, the fMRI machine.” “Now, for the first time, researchers found a way to record the brain activity of free-moving octopuses thanks to the work of an international team from Germany, Italy, Japan, Switzerland and Ukraine. Their study, recently published in the journal Current Biology, documents a new way to record octopus brain activity for up to 12 hours. But while this experiment was groundbreaking, it’s also not clear yet what exactly these signals mean.” “They can sense the different directions light waves vibrate, a property known as polarization. Even their basic perception is radically different from ours.” “the researchers found an intriguing workaround to implant a data logger (originally designed to track the flight of birds) and some electrodes for measuring brain activity. First, the researchers made a small incision between its eyes and then inserted the devices adhered onto a plastic card with super glue.” “Gutnick and his colleagues were able to pick up clear signals of brain activity, but deciphering these patterns is another story. Some of the brain waves resembled the size and shape of mammalian brain activity, but other pulses from the neurons of octopuses were completely bizarre. These were long-lasting, slow oscillations with large amplitudes, which indicates relatively strong electrical activity. These have not been reported before. Unfortunately, the researchers were unable to find a strong correlation between this activity and the way the octopuses were behaving. Even when the octopuses were moving around, they could find no obvious changes in signal, despite drastic changes in motion or remaining still. There are still a lot of mysteries to untangle”—”The first observations of octopus brain waves revealed how alien their minds truly are. Scientists implanted electrodes into an octopus’ head for the first time. It only raised more questions.”

Cthulhu is gonna be pissed! However, aside from the pure horror, I must also object when they say “Octopuses (the correct plural, not octopi)” because that is a lie. It’s octopodes. Fight me.

Also “Recording electrical activity from the brain of behaving octopus. Highlights. First recordings of brain activity from untethered, freely moving octopus. Electrodes implanted into learning and memory centers of the octopus brain. Data logger surgically introduced into the animal’s body. 12 h of neural activity synchronized with HD video of untethered behavior.”