Octopuses may be terrifically smart because of this genetic quirk they share with humans


By Ben Turner
published

Octopus brains may have grown smart from an enormous diversity of microRNAs that let them grow multiple types of brain cells.

 

 Octopuses may have gained some of their exceptional intelligence from the same evolutionary process that humans went through, a new study suggests. 

The process involved a sudden explosion of microRNAs (miRNAs) — small, noncoding molecules that control how genes are expressed. This increase may have helped the brains of octopuses and humans to develop new types of nerve cells, or neurons, which were stitched together into more complex neural networks.

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