Can a spider get depressed?

[The Snark]

I think if a study is only playing around with possibilities it remains but a possibility. I'll bet dollars to dimes that is a study only performed on mammals; it is feasible to assume this wouldn't be the case in a less developed brain as their are no supporting chemicals to trigger an emotional response. In other words, you could have this problem with your neurotransmitters but have nothing in your brain that identifies it and gives the subsequent feelings of depression.

I guess my point is you would have to draw a lot of conclusions on assumptions to come to that conclusion with where the research is at currently.

Emotional response has been the principal indicator in mammals. Can a spider get depressed? Well, what would depression be indicated by in an animal that doesn't have the capacity for emotions? Infertility, reduced life span, abnormal behavioral patterns etc. Depression in lower order life forms has not been categorically ruled out and is therefore certainly possible.

 

[Tenodera]

That is a good point. We shouldn't be assuming invertebrate depression, if it exists, is similar to mammalian depression in specific ways. A definition could even be something like "chronic lack of contentment" (it seems to be widely acknowledged that inverts can "feel content"). I'm not going to jump into my anecdotes of lonely male hissers or anything. But we can't debate something with undefined terms.

 

[Mamata Polle]

Oh thank you Snark and Tenodera!!!

It is soooo nice not to feel like an alien anymore! Someone finally gets it!

I've been trying to figure out how to explain this since the beginning of this thread, but you said it perfectly Tenodera;

"We shouldn't be assuming invertebrate depression, if it exists, is similar to mammalian depression in specific ways. A definition could even be something like "chronic lack of contentment" (it seems to be widely acknowledged that inverts can "feel content")."

That's basically what I beleive. I guess you could say that I define the word, "Depression," a bit wider than most people. Lack of contentment is a good way to put it for a creature that is just so different, it's difficult to find physical and chemical common ground. For example, I saw a vid of a hisser being fed to a Tarantula once where the roach was still alive while being eaten, (Ouch.) Anyway, as you all know Hissers are gifted with the ability to make sound, making their... "Thoughts," a little easier for us to guess. Said roach definitely made a noise when he was stabbed by the T's fangs, but he still managed to find time to clean his foot while he was being eaten...? What I personally took away from this was that it's very possible that inverts do not register feelings the SAME way that we do, but that they do have something like it. The roach didn't want to be eaten, didn't like it when it happened, thus the, (Dare I say it,) scream. Yet whilst impaled he could still think about his foot. There are two explanations I can think of for this;
1: Maybe preening is an autonomous function to a roach, like breathing is to us.
2: Maybe the bodily signal that lets a roach know that he's damaged, while bad by any definition still allows him to think of something else. (I don't think I'd be thinking about cleanliness with a spear in my gut!) Regardless, I would still call it pain because English doesen't have a word for whatever a roach feels in response to being stabbed.

When I started this thread it was for two reasons, to find help for my spider, and to ascertain if anyone had seen a spider exibit lack of contentment after losing an egg sac. Perhaps a sudden absence of whatever chemicals are associated with reproduction in spiders? (Just a thought.)

What you said Snark illustartes that anything is possible, while it's not good to assume, a good scientist is open minded, (In my oppinon.)

I read this artical around a year ago on another site, it's what put me on this train of thought.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...s-consciousness-able-count-claim-experts.html

Thank you.

Be Well and God Bless,
Mamata

 

[Ciphor]

A lot of things are possible, but only science makes them provable.

 

[Mamata Polle]

Exactly Ciphor, and science proves new things every day.

 

[The Snark]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2569746
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2906520

 

[Ciphor]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2569746
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2906520

Great articles, but I still have to firmly oppose how well this research applies to arachnids. Really, the only connection mammals have with arachnids is the animal kingdom. Beyond that, the differences are vast. Just one stark comparison, consider a money spider with its brain contained partially in its legs. How do you compare something that has brain mater in its legs with a rodent?

I'm not opposed to speculative talk by any means, but it is still just that, speculation and imagination. Right now as it stands, the science is clear without any debate; arachnids are sensory based organisms that do not feel depression or emotion, they simply feel stress/strain. That is proven fact. Something may disprove it in the future, but I do not think it will start with mammalian research, there are just to many differences to draw a conclusion like that from one phylum to another.

As a last note I will pull the first line from one of these abstracts "The neurochemical and receptor theories relate depression to deficient neurotransmission at critical sites in the brain."
I am no neurologist, but I would put my money on mammals having completely different brain sites then arachnids.

 

[The Snark]

An old dog here

I learned something a few years ago. A political candidate operating on limited knowledge spewed ridicule about American taxpayer $$$ being spent in France on the study of tiny insects. Since that time I have caught and kicked myself in the arse more than a few times for extending ridicule before I have all the facts. I am referring to being needlessly negative.

Everyone who brushes shoulders with the sciences should endeavor to keep in mind; as Einstein staring at the clock, the absurd can become a profound scientific revelation in the blink of an eye and even the deepest thinkers can end up looking Palin-esque with her drosophila.

Let's keep in mind, E=MC2 is still speculation.

 

[Michiel]

Forza Ciphor!

Theoretically I might grow three arms out if my scrotum tomorrow...does not mean it will. Nothing wrong with being open minded...But our fantastic human brain, which we stikl barely understand, is our biggest asset, byt also our biggest weakness. That which we don't find logical, might be very logical...Nature and everything in it, is just there, if we understand it or not....science has it's limits and so does open mindedness......science depends on what questions you ask and how you interpret the answers to the questions you ask...
Spiders cannot be depressed, cannot have other psychopathology( my spider has a dissociative identity disorder) , they can suffer from symptoms that are comparable to the vital characters that are connected with depression in humans, but not from deficit hormones, neurotransmitters or inhereted traits...it comes from external stimuli like, captive conditions, feeding regiments....and things like the life stage they are in..
Read the dsm IV-tr.....
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[Mamata Polle]

We should all be only as open minded as each of us is comfortable with. The human race wouldn't get very far if everyone thought the same things. (That would be boring!)

Update:
The spider for which this thread was started, (Letisha, yes I named her so we could stop calling her, "The Spider," you may now descend upon me with criticisms of my anthropomorphism! ) has taken nicely to her new web, but refuses to eat. If she were younger I would say she's getting ready to molt, alas she's not. So my question is, which is more likely?
A: She's old and dying.
B: She preparing to make a new eggsack.
C: Something I haven't thought of.

Be Well and God Bless,
Mamata

 

[Ciphor]

We should all be only as open minded as each of us is comfortable with. The human race wouldn't get very far if everyone thought the same things. (That would be boring!)

Update:
The spider for which this thread was started, (Letisha, yes I named her so we could stop calling her, "The Spider," you may now descend upon me with criticisms of my anthropomorphism! ) has taken nicely to her new web, but refuses to eat. If she were younger I would say she's getting ready to molt, alas she's not. So my question is, which is more likely?
A: She's old and dying.
B: She preparing to make a new eggsack.
C: Something I haven't thought of.

Be Well and God Bless,
Mamata

D: Your stressing her out by giving her a male roomate & moving around her surroundings followed by immediately giving her food. These things are almost guaranteed to stress a spider out.

Spiders eat more when making egg sacs, never less. It takes a spider time to get comfortable in a new home. You stuck a new hide in her enclosure right? Give her 7 days (1 week) of ZERO disturbance. No lid lifting, no flash lights, no male, no nothing. Hell, stick her in a dark closet for a week. THEN put some food in the cage.

 

[Michiel]

We should all be only as open minded as each of us is comfortable with. The human race wouldn't get very far if everyone thought the same things. (That would be boring!)

Update:
The spider for which this thread was started, (Letisha, yes I named her so we could stop calling her, "The Spider," you may now descend upon me with criticisms of my anthropomorphism! ) has taken nicely to her new web, but refuses to eat. If she were younger I would say she's getting ready to molt, alas she's not. So my question is, which is more likely?
A: She's old and dying.
B: She preparing to make a new eggsack.
C: Something I haven't thought of.

Be Well and God Bless,
Mamata

1. Totally agree, glad we humans are different, would be a very boring place if we were all the same;
2. I still have my first tarantula that I bought when I still had hair and was a noob...Called it Cliff after Metallica's former bassist...it is a female for crying out loud did not know that back then...


Verstuurd van mijn GT-I9001 met Tapatalk

 

[Mamata Polle]

To Ciphor:
I did take the male out when Silberrucken said that, it seemed to help alot. Apparently he was the reason for her need to be glued in the corner, because as soon as he was out she made herself comfortable in the new web. It hadn't occurred to me that 24 hours wasn't enough time for her to be ready to eat... All the others I've had were prolific webbers who would get spinning the same night they were captured. Believe it or not, I've never had one of these who didn't act completely normal, so this is actually quite new for me. I guess they are just a very hardy and stable species. I will try your closet idea, I don't use flashlights or disturb her really, because the way I have her tube positioned I can see her silouette inside through the clear plastic of the KK. However the fact that I can see her probably means that she can detect ambient light coming in too. Perhaps all day darkness will help.

To Michiel:
Glad to see I'm not the only one who assigns names to spiders. LOL

Be Well and God Bless,
Mamata

 

[Mamata Polle]

Yay!

Miss Letisha is eating again and acting perfectly normal! Thank you all for your help!
Be Well and God Bless.
Mamata