Fish Feel Pain Fact or Fiction

In the article, “Hooked on a Myth” by Victoria Braithwaite, Braithwaite wrote about how fishes have the ability to feel pain. Until reading this article, I was not made aware of the idea that fishes can be smart nor that they can respond emotionally to a stimulus. In the article, Braithwaite thoroughly explained the reasons on why we should respect fishes by giving compelling evidence. Braithwaite argued that fishes feel emotions due to a part of their brain that functions similarly to our amygdala and hippocampus. This proves that fishes have the capability of feeling different type of emotions. She also claimed that fishes are smart since they have the cognitive ability to learn different and unique type of skills that can help them survive. And Lastly, Braithwaite argued that fishes can feel pain due to their nociceptors that allow them to detect pain.

Re "Hooked on a Myth," Oct. 8, 2006: Victoria Braithwaite claims that fish feel pain., contrary to belief by many. I completely agree. Although fish may be seen as dim-witted , that does not mean that they can't feel pain. I've watched my grandpa fish enough times to know that fish have blank expressions. But just because someone or something hides their feelings, does not mean that they don't feel anything.

Following this point he points out that perhaps lobsters understand pain but they “don’t dislike it” and how “pain is not distressing them” (Wallace 63). He reinstates the fact that there is a clear difference in “pain as a purely neurological event” from pain as “actual suffering”, the latter requiring “an emotional component” (Wallace 36). Later on he states that this means that although lobster’s experience pain it is not a struggle based on discomfort but more of a preference. More akin to you preferring to sit in a certain spot around the table. These are used to inform the reader of the physical aspects of the lobster that affect the overall moral ambiguity of the subject.

The fins may be locked in place so that they stick outwards to defend themselves from prey. In some other species, they use these spines to inject the predator with a stinging poison. This poison is actually a protein produced by glandular cells in the epidermal tissue that covers the spines. Very few species are lucky enough to produce poison in their spines, especially since catfish have no teeth. Catfish are bottom feeders and usually capture and eat their prey by gulping or suction. They have a large mouth that can expand and some have suckermouths that allow them to attach themselves to their prey. These are all characteristics that have evolved to help them catch prey without the presence of

This thesis experiment used hot-plate test model to explore the supraspinal level on central analgesic activity of AVS022 and its components. The pain process includes transduction, transmission, modulation and perception, that begin from peripheral nociceptor is stimulated by noxious stimuli then sent nerve impulse into nerve fiber to afferent neuron at dorsal horn in spinal cord which modify the signals to CNS that are generated to the pain perception in brain. Administration of centrally acting analgesics were known to activate the release of endogenous peptide by periaqueductal gray matter (PAG), which are carry to the spinal cord to inhibit the pain transmission within the dorsal horn, causes prolongation of the latency time of response.83,

Nociception defines as the detection mechanisms of noxious stimuli by the primary afferent nociceptors of the peripheral nervous system (National Research Council, 2009), encoding and transferring by the central nervous system (Barrot, 2012). Noxious stimuli activates nociceptors that are in the periphery and enters in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord via dorsal root ganglion, ascends to the thalamus via spinothalamic tract. Nociception can happen without pain. Pain is an unpleasant sensory product of higher brain centre (National Research Council, 2009), often associated with potential tissue damage (Barrot, 2012).

Their bodies run and work differently because of how their bodies regulate water. Freshwater contains low levels of salt causing fish living in these areas to program their bodies to regulate salt into their cells, but saltwater fish on the other hand contains higher levels of salt causing fish in these areas to program their bodies to regulate salt

The brains of humans and other mammals possess a compensatory mechanism, which is known as cross-modal plasticity and, prior to this study, it was thought to only be associated with complex organisms (Hebrew, 2016). Cross-modal plasticity allows the enhancement of one or multiple senses following the loss of another sensory input. For example, if one were to lose his or her eyesight, his or her hearing or sense of smell might increase in sensitivity and ability. The roundworm C. elegans was a perfect specimen to study, as its nervous system is far less complex compared to humans. The researchers mutated the worms and eliminated their sense of touch. As a result, C. elegans developed an enhanced olfaction, so they responded more frequently to low concentrations of certain odors, such as those of food (Rabinowitch et al., 2016). This change in sensitivity was measured by how quickly the worms returned to their food supply after being removed from it and comparing the results to non-mutated worms (Rabinowitch et al.,

Others things to be concerned with are the needle like barbs on the dorsal fins of catfish/bullhead species. The wound created by the barbs is likened to a bee sting or other insect bites and they can become infected if not treated. Certain fresh water fish also have teeth that can cause a rather nasty wound if you are not careful. Any cut or scrape and especially a puncture wound from a barb in a survival situation can lead to infection, which can be deadly.

(Ha)- The electric organs are a characteristic in electric fishes that have changed separately numerous times over generations in order to make electricity to navigate, to communicate, to help in defense and to aid in catching and eating prey but have similarities between the lineages, like pathways that affect certain cells and similar transcription factors.

Renee told me, “Feeling the fish’s strength in the pull of the line, is the best feeling I have all day. It’s like being free of your memories for a few minutes a day.”

Certain types of pain can cause lasting damage to the animal model, but thermal hyperalgesia does not, and the hot-plate latency test does not present anything worse than temporary discomfort for the animal. According to ethics committees and review boards, experiments with animal models involving pain threshold should be sure to remove the animal from the noxious stimulus once a response has been obtained (Le Bars, Gozariu, & Cadden 2001). In order to do this, the researchers must be aware of the common pain responses of their animal

A study by Sneddon and colleges looks at the response fish have to noxious stimuli, specifically rainbow trout (Sneddon, Braithwaite, & Gentle, 2003). This study examined how fish react to a noxious stimuli and how that effects their reaction to a new or fearful object (Sneddon et al, 2003). This study looked at three different aspects of fish in relation to noxious stimuli, the response to an object that was not familiar, response to a familiar object, and the response to an unfamiliar object once pain has been removed (Sneddon et al, 2003). To induce pain, fish were injected with acid and then compared to

The senses are hearing, smell, lateral line, pit organs, vision, Lorenzini, touch, and taste. Sharks have many senses that us humans do such as taste and smell, but it has special three senses that we do not have. The lateral line, pit organs and Lorenzini are the three senses that have been discovered in the last 10 - 20 years, and play an important role in how the shark behaves when swimming around. The six senses which shark use very essentially for looking and hunting prey prey are - Smell, Eyesight, Electrosense(sense of electricity), Water Pressure, Hearing and Taste. Two thirds of a shark’s brain is devoted to smell.

Sharks ancestry dates back more than 400 million years, and they are even older than dinosaurs. These animals are uniquely adapted to their environment with six highly refined senses of touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing and electromagnetism. They are the top predators in the ocean, with the only real threat to their survival being humans. Each year, thousands of sharks are being killed by human activity including illegal poaching, illegal hunting, culling, and shark nets place along coastlines. (Sharks as keystone species, 2016)