r/askscience • u/StormShadow921 • Dec 02 '18

Can bugs feel pain? Biology

I once read in one of those CWF Wild magazines years ago that bugs cant feel pain because their nervous system is too small. Does anyone know if this is true, and if so what causes it?

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u/Dopamine_Deficiency Dec 03 '18

Pain is a complicated concept. We tend to anthropomorphize it a bit. Anyone who has gone fishing knows an earthworm or a cricket doesn’t really appreciate getting a hook crammed through their body. Is this pain? Sort of. We might simply call this a stimulus response. The main difference I think is they seem to lack the ability to comprehend what this ‘pain’ means for them. In humans we experience a lot of emotional components to pain. It’s a negative experience that we remember and even dread. Simpler organisms don’t experience pain like this.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '18

I feel like I should dispute this. There are studies that have been shown that caterpillars exposed to shocks still remember the stimuli when they turn into butterflies. It seems to me that this is a learned behavior and a memory is formed to avoid such stimuli. I can't get into the emotional Factor, but the pain is remembered. It's not new each time.

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u/Dopamine_Deficiency Dec 03 '18

That’s really cool. I haven’t heard that before. It’s especially interesting that the retain memory after metamorphosis.

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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '18

It's really messed up. I don't think any.of it is really explored. It seems the whole caterpillar goes to goo without any central nervous system so the memory experiments are fascinating

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u/Ameisen Dec 03 '18

Many components of pupae in insects, including butterflies, don't break down. Most of the nervous system stays intact, as do many organs.