Even a worm can make decisions, says a study

Decisions are hard. (Remember good ol' Hamlet?). From what you'll have for dinner to what you will wear for it, choices abound. And all of this may often lead to an unnecessary headache. But it turns out making a decision is not hard as it is made out to be. A worm with just 302 neurons can do this successfully. For comparison, humans have billions of neurons.

The study in this regard was carried out by researchers in Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California. They studied a predatory worm called P pacificus. The changes in the behaviour of the worm was studied. It was seen when the worm would bite to save its food or when it would bite to kill a competitor.

In order to check the worm's ability to taje decision, scientists relied more on its behaviour rather than an extremely-detailed study about how impulses traveled through the neutrons.

P pacificus' behaviour with respect to C elegans was studied. C elegans is P pacificus' competitior as well as its prey.

It was observed that when confronted with larval C elegans that are easy to overpower, P pacificus bit to devour. But when a fully grown C elegans tried to steal its food, P pacificus bit just to deter it.

"Our study shows you can use a simple system such as the worm to study something complex, like goal-directed decision-making," says neurobiologist Sreekanth Chalasani as quoted on Salk institute's website.

"We also demonstrated that behavior can tell us a lot about how the brain works."