Insects may feel pain after all (or a misleading popular science article)

Next time you swat a mosquito keep that in mind! 😊

Unfortunately, I did not realize that this recent popular science article is based on pretty old studies with the most recent ones dating to July 2022. It even quotes a Smithsonian Magazine article from July 2019 titled "Study Finds Insects Can Experience Chronic Pain"

"... Most animals (if not all) exhibit something called nociception — a physical reaction to harm that is useful (it helps the animal avoid what is harmful) — but this is not exactly pain per se. ...
Until not very long ago, it was thought that only humans and some mammals can feel pain. Increasingly, though, researchers found out that way more animals can feel pain. Fish are one good example: for a long time, we thought fish couldn’t feel pain, but research has shown that that’s not really the case. ...

the insects’ nervous systems. They started by drawing comparisons with humans. ... This is because sometimes, in an emergency, the brain produces opiates that hijack the brain and prevent it from feeling pain.

Insects don’t really produce opiates, but they produce neuropeptides, which are substances that serve a similar purpose. Researchers found that when insects were exposed to physical trauma, they seem to produce neuropeptides, mimicking how humans and other vertebrates produce opiates, which is possible evidence of them feeling pain. ...
This isn’t the first time researchers have found evidence of feeling pain. In 2019, one study showed that insects can experience chronic pain and, increasingly, evidence is mounting that insects may be more sentient than we thought. ..."

Insects may feel pain after all, and may be more sentient than we thought We do a lot of bad things to insects, and we shrug it off by thinking insects don't feel any pain. But that may not be true.