Why fish do not feel pain: insights from neuroscience

Carl Safina, ecologist and author of “What animals think and feel” says “it’s very obvious that animals are conscious to those who observe them.  They have to be in order to do the things they do and make the choices that they do, and use the judgments that they use.”  Culum Brown, fish biologist and behavioural ecologist, has “argued from a behavioural ecology perspective that pain perception in vertebrate taxa is likely to have been an ancient evolutionary trait given the obvious fitness benefits it conveys to all animals”.  Jaak Panksepp, founder of the field of affective neuroscience, states that “valenced feelings exist, even in non-speaking animals, despite the obvious fact that researchers cannot see them.”

In this seminar I will present some compelling evidence from neuroscience that may challenge deeply held views about the phylogenetic origins of pain in vertebrates.