blog

Pavlov’s cockroach: classical conditioning of salivation in an insect is a paper from 2007, in PLoS ONE^{10.1371/journal.pone.0000529}. And, yes: it describes the classical Pavlovian response, but not with dogs (or cats), but in everybody’s favourite Blattidae, Periplaneta americana.

The authors conditioned cockroaches to salivate in response to an odour associated with a reward. This, they say, demonstrates that conditioning of salivation is ubiquitous among different phyla. Also, cockroaches having somewhat simple brains, it should be easier in cockroaches to study the neural pathways involved in conditioning.

These authors have indeed published quite a few papers subsequently (including maps of the sensory nerve pattern in the roach’s nose), although unfortunately none of them have made it into F1000. Yet.

And the search term that brought this paper to my attention?

But the idea that they may salivate to the aroma of your pizza is something that Pixar studios haven’t so far exploited and which should be patented in this perspective by the authors…

–F1000 Member Martin Giurfa