Snails become risk-takers when hungry

n a paper published in the Science Advances journal, Professor George Kemenes, Professor Kevin Staras and Dr Michael Crossley showed that pond-snails have the ability to alter their food preferences in the face of extreme hunger.

The team demonstrated that in order to maximise food intake and aid their survival, hungry animals were prepared to risk ingesting a potentially harmful substance that their fully-fed counterparts would always reject.

Using brain recording techniques, they determined that this was due to central dopaminergic interneurons which act like a sophisticated control switch increasing risky decision-making as hunger levels rise.