will the same worm respond differently in a situation depending on what it is thinking? according to new research studying neurons within microscopic roundworms, the answer is an emphatic ‘yes’ they found that worms would choose to respond to a nearby odour depending on what they were ‘thinking’ about   suggesting they have free will just like humans the study was carried out by scientists at rockefeller university in new york they found roundworms (pictured) would sometimes 'think' for themselves all the neurons within this microscopic roundworm are highlighted, with the large cluster at one end representing the brain  the research was carried out by scientists from the rockefeller university in new york who studied the brain of the microscopic roundworm caenorhabditis elegans its 302 neurons and 7,000 synapses are comparatively tiny compared to the 86 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses in a human brain but it is still useful to address tricky neurological questions that would be nearly impossible to broach in our own brains worms spend their time wandering, looking for decomposing matter to eat   and when they smell it, they usually stop making random turns and travel straight toward the source this change in behaviour is initially triggered by a sensory neuron that perceives the smell and feeds that information to the network the researchers studied as the worms pick up the alluring fruity smell of isoamyl alcohol, the neurons in the network transition into a low activity state that allows them to approach the odour but sometimes the neurons remain highly active, and the worm continues to wander around   even though its sensory neuron has detected the odour they found that, if offered a 'delicious' smell, the roundworm will usually stop its wandering to investigate the source   but sometimes it won’t just as with humans, the same stimulus does not always provoke the same response, even from the same individual ‘we found that the collective state of the three neurons at the exact moment an odour arrives determines the likelihood that the worm will move toward the smell,’ said study author dr cori bargmann  ‘so, in essence, what the worm is thinking about at the time determines how it responds ‘it goes to show that nervous systems aren’t passively waiting for signals from outside, they have their own internal patterns of activity that are as important as any external signal when it comes to generating a behaviour’ the researchers also found that by changing the activity of the neurons individually, and in combination, they could pinpoint each neuron’s role in generating variability in humans, the research may suggest ways in which our brains process competing motivations 'for humans, a hungry state might lead to you walk across the street to a delicious smelling restaurant,' said author andrew gordus 'however, a competing aversion to the cold might lead you to stay indoors' (stock image) by recording the activity of the neurons, the team found that there were three persistent states among the three neurons: all were off, all were on, or only one, called aib, was on if all were off when the odour signal arrived, they stayed off if all were on, they often   but not always   shut off by recording the activity of the neurons, the team found that there were three persistent states among the three neurons: all were off, all were on, or only one, called aib, was on if all were off when the odour signal arrived, they stayed off if all were on, they often   but not always   shut off and, in the third and most telling scenario, if aib alone was active when the odour arrived, everything shut off 'this means that for aib, context matters,' continued author and research associate andrew gordus aib is the first neuron in the network to receive the signal, which it then relays to the other two network members, known as rim and ava; ava sends out the final instruction to the muscles and, in the third and most telling scenario, if aib alone was active when the odour arrived, everything shut off 'this means that for aib, context matters,' continued author and research associate andrew gordus 'if it’s on alone, its activity will drop when odour is added, but if it’s on with the rest of the network, it has difficulty dropping its activity with the others' aib is the first neuron in the network to receive the signal, which it then relays to the other two network members, known as rim and ava; ava sends out the final instruction to the muscles when the researchers shut off rim and ava individually and together, they found aib’s response to the odour signal improved this suggests that input from these two neurons competes with the sensory signal as it feeds down through the network scaled up to account for the more nuanced behaviours of humans, the research may suggest ways in which our brains process competing motivations 'for humans, a hungry state might lead to you walk across the street to a delicious smelling restaurant,' said professor gordus 'however, a competing aversion to the cold might lead you to stay indoors'
rockefeller university new york
study was carried out by scientists at rockefeller university in new york . they found worms would sometimes 'think' for themselves . if offered an odour, they would sometimes   but not always   investigate . even the same individual did not always have the same response . it suggests that  like humans, the worms may have a sense of 'free will'