SO WHO funded this deep and meaningful research - US scientists gave MDMA (ecstasy) to a species of solitary, asocial octopus and watched the cuddly cephalopods get all touchy-feely with one another.
The loved-up long limbed lads and lasses spent more time interacting and even made extensive physical contact, which is very unusual in the sober creatures, the researchers say.
In an attempt to justify their mind-blowing "findings", the scientists said they showed that the neurotransmitter serotonin, which is released in quantity by administration of MDMA, could encode social behaviour in cephalopods, as in humans.
"Despite anatomical differences between octopus and human brain, we've shown that there are molecular similarities in the serotonin transporter gene," says Gl Dlen of Johns Hopkins University, noting that the gene encodes a transmembrane protein that serves as the primary binding site for MDMA.
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