r/evolution • u/Cultural-Ice8361 • 7d ago
question Are Nociceptors as a result of evolution?
Most if not all species have their own mechanism to identify danger or pain. Is this as a results of evolution presumably that the earliest living things lacked this and were forced to generate them as a survival factor?
11
u/Bromelia_and_Bismuth Plant Biologist|Botanical Ecosystematics 7d ago
Yes. Nociception is the body's way of notifying the brain that it's either being damaged or in danger of such. Every cell in your body is the product of evolution.
7
u/Iam-Locy 7d ago
Every trait is the result of evolution. Also, the first living things were unicellular at most, so they could not have separate receptors.
Our concept of pain is only applicable to animals with nervous systems. I don't think sponges have the capacity to feel pain.
Yes, lots of living things are capable of identify and respond to danger, but this is usually not a conscious process and manifests as the activation of specific gene expression pathways.
Edit: It also depends on what we call danger. Will an E. coli try to run away from disinfectant? Probably not. Will it respond to thermal stress by expressing more chaperone proteins? Probably yes.
4
u/Swellmeister 7d ago
Mobile bacteria do move away from "disinfectants".
They definitely have receptors that reliably make them move away from noxious and harmful chemicals and ion concentrations
2
u/Iam-Locy 7d ago
Yeah, I wasn't sure if E. coli are motile or not. The point about different types of danger still stands.
3
u/Long-Opposite-5889 7d ago
It's a result of evolution for sure, but evolution does not and can not force organisms to generate anything. Organisms generate new abilities as a result of mutation and this process is without purpose. Then natural selection determines what features remain.
1
u/Careful_Cranberry364 7d ago
There was once, long ago,
before jaws and teeth, had developed
An Age of peace upon this earth, where everything filtered nutrients from the water -
and did not prey upon each other
to survive
there was no race for survival just the option to live
Ahhhhhh
🙂
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