Virtual Research Seminar Series
Pain research helps us determine which species warrant welfare protections. Although shrimp are heavily exploited for food and research, little work has been done to assess whether they may experience pain, and few jurisdictions consider their welfare. Nociception is the sensory capacity to respond to harmful stimuli reflexively, which may be accompanied by a centrally processed negative feeling, which we call pain. Evidence of nociceptive integration rules out reflex-only interpretations and supports the hypothesis of pain occurrence. I conducted novel behavioral and neurochemical assays to determine whether nociceptive integration occurs in Alpheus angulosus, a snapping shrimp. Subjects learned to avoid a previously preferred dark chamber when it was associated with nociceptive heat compared to a room temperature control. Additionally, heat-treated subjects showed increased expression of a pain-associated biomarker in brain regions associated with learning, memory, and sensory integration, but not in a region putatively unrelated to pain processing. These findings provide evidence for nociceptive integration in A. angulosus, supporting the hypothesis that a shrimp species may experience pain. The welfare of shrimp should therefore be considered in their use as research subjects and commercial resources.
Beyond reflex: Behavioral and neurochemical evidence of nociceptive integration in shrimp
June 23 | 5 PM BST
Jesi Gibbs, Master's Candidate, College of Charleston, Graduate Program in Marine Biology
Upcoming Seminars
Postponed, new date TBD: “Producing shrimp in certified farms: Does it improve their welfare?” (Urja Thakrar, PhD Student, Royal Veterinary College)
Past Seminars on our YouTube
March 2026 - “Debating Insect Sentience and Welfare” (Vivek Nityananda; Senior Lecturer; Newcastle University)
January 2026 - “Dietary preferences and impacts of feeding on behavior, longevity, and reproduction in adult black solider flies” (Edward Waddell; Assistant Professor, Biology; Holy Family University)
November 2025 - “Positive and negative affective states, motivational trade-offs, and consequences of tagging in a cockroach” (David Fisher; Lecturer, School of Biological Sciences; University of Aberdeen)
September 2025 - “Blood Money: The history of horseshoe crabs in science and medicine” (Kristoffer Whitney; Associate Professor, Department of Science, Technology, and Society; Rochester Institute of Technology)
August 2025 -“How Can We Measure Sentience in an Insect?” (Matilda Gibbons; University of Pennsylvania, Department of Neuroscience, Perelman School of Medicine)
June 2025 -“When and Why Are Motivational Trade-Offs Evidence of Sentience?” (Simon Brown, Research Officer, London School of Economics, UK)
May 2025 - “Investigations on the possibility of pain in crustaceans and changes in how these animals are used” (Emeritus Professor Bob Elwood; Queen’s University, Belfast, UK)
April 2025 -“The 3Rs Principles in Invertebrate Research” (Dr. Miriam A Zemanova; University of Fribourg, Switzerland)
October 2024 -“Identifying trends in reporting on the ethical treatment of insects in research” (Craig Perl, PhD; Insect Welfare Research Society, USA)
August 2024 - “The Sphex story: How humans kept repeating themselves” (Fred Keijzer, PhD; University of Groningen, the Netherlands)
June 2024 -“How honeybees think” (Andrew Barron, PhD; Macquarie University, AU)
April 2024 - “The moral status of insects” (Jeff Sebo, PhD; New York University, USA)
March 2024 - “The needs and means of using non-lethal methods in entomological research” (Gabor Lövei, PhD; Aarhus University & University of Debrecen & Marco Ferrante, PhD; Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany)
February 2024 - “Evaluating electrical stunning as a humane slaughter method for decapod crustaceans: Lessons learned when assessing sensitivity” (Amaya Albalat, PhD; University of Stirling, UK) - view slides here
December 2023 - “How the cricket feels and what the mealworm has to say: The influence of rearing environments on insect welfare in different food and feed production systems” (Alexander Haverkamp, PhD; Wageningen University, the Netherlands)
October 2023 - “Insect Sentience” (Lars Chittka, PhD; Queen Mary University of London, UK) - view recording of comparable talk at UFAW, here
August 2023 -“How Can We Know What is Good for Insects?” (Heather Browning, PhD; Southhampton University, UK)
June 2023 - “Insect welfare: Solid foundations for an emerging field” (Meghan Barrett, PhD; California State University Dominguez Hills, USA)