When Aliens Touch: Prosocial Neural Circuitry across Scientific Practices

• In Event: STS and the Subject

Abstract

By now, the entanglement of neuroscience, psychopharmacology, and practices geared toward crafting a healthier and happier self, have been amply studied. Much work in STS foregrounds how these practices lead to the creation of new selves and ways of relating. However, how these techniques may interfere with and redefine the boundaries between humans and non-humans deserves further articulation. I address this need through a recent experiment where researchers at a marine biology lab decided to experiment by giving ‘love-drug’ MDMA to solitary Octopuses, and observed how these animals behaved, specifically, how they touched each other after an MDMA bath.
I first share the distinct disciplinary approaches and epistemic curiosity through which MDMA and Octopuses form part of scientific practices. This entails charting the trajectory of MDMA in and out of psychiatric clinics, couples therapy, and imaging techniques. These practices grapple with the empathic response that MDMA is said to generate in humans. I then present the scientific practices through which Octopuses come to be known as the most intelligent of all invertebrates. I then turn to how the possibility to advance robotics and translational research intermingles with the scientific endeavors to better understand these alien-like creatures.
Through the case of Octopuses on MDMA, I attend to how the quest for ancient prosocial neural circuitry permeates non-human mostly approached for their charismatic differences. In doing so, I re-assess how the landscape of self-oriented neurotechnologies infiltrate, muddle with and foster new distinctions between human, non-human, and alien like creatures.

Author

• Swasti Mishra