The Hyperneuroplastic Octopus: Master of Neural Adaptation

By Dr. Patty Gently on September 11, 2025

hyperneuroplastic octopus

Bright Insight Support Network founder and president Dr. Patricia Gently supports gifted and twice-exceptional adults in their own autopsychotherapy through identity exploration, structured reflection, and alignment with inner values. A writer, educator, and 2e adult, Dr. Patty centers depth, integrity, and complexity in all aspects of her work.

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Introduction: Alien Minds, Familiar Lessons

So many gifted/galvanic/neurodivergent folx relate more to aliens than to other humans. Why is that? Maybe it’s because we often feel foreign amongst peers, like we landed on the wrong planet. I can relate. Some of us turn to earthly creatures as stand-ins, too, like zebras, giraffes, or the phenomenon known as the platypus, searching the strange to feel less bizarre ourselves. For me, that search keeps circling back to the ever-odd and curiously captivating octopus.

Octopuses fascinate for good reason. They can change color and texture at will, decorate their dens, squeeze through impossible spaces, and crack puzzles like seasoned gamers. Females have even been caught tossing rocks at pushy mates (go on, slippery sis!). And my inner nine-year-old boy still delights in the simple joy of saying “octopuses.”

Playfulness aside, an octopus’s nervous system is so different from ours that many researchers describe it as the closest thing to alien intelligence on Earth. Yet in that difference (and familiar alien reference), I find a mirror. Octopuses model what I call hyperneuroplasticity (HNP): a bias toward rapid, deep, whole-system neural reconfiguration (Shomrat & Hochner, 2022; Scheel et al., 2023). Studying them also illuminates cephalopod biology while reframing how we might see adaptability in our own systems.

This possibility connects back to my earlier explorations of hyperneuroplasticity and dynamic systems in humans. Where neurodivergent people adapt through identity shifts, trauma recovery, or sudden bursts of learning, octopuses show parallel processes at the molecular scale. Through RNA editing, they literally rewrite their own transcripts to meet environmental demands (Liscovitch-Brauer et al., 2017). In both humans and octopuses, adaptability is woven into the architecture of life itself, beyond accessory. 

Octopuses: Nature’s Radical Experiment in Intelligence

Lifespan and Evolutionary Pressure

Evolution took a divergent path when it produced the octopus. Unlike mammals, octopuses have relatively short lifespans of one to five years, depending on the species. They lack cultural transmission; there is no parental teaching to pass down accumulated knowledge. For an octopus to survive, it must learn almost everything on its own, and it must do so quickly. This evolutionary pressure for rapid, individual adaptation created a nervous system that is highly flexible, distributed, and dynamic. In fact, the demand to learn quickly in such a short life seems directly tied to the way octopuses evolved their remarkable nervous system architecture. Octopuses, that is, embody intelligence as continuous adaptation rather than fixed programming (Godfrey-Smith, 2016).

Implication for HNP: Their short lifespans and lack of cultural transmission mean octopuses must rely entirely on their own rapid learning and flexible nervous systems. This makes neuroplasticity essential: their brains and arms are wired for fast adaptation, continuous recalibration, and survival without inherited instruction.

Distributed Neural Architecture

An octopus's nervous system contains roughly 500 million neurons. Strikingly, more than two-thirds of those neurons reside in their arms rather than in their lightbulb-shaped noggin. Each arm has its own neural circuits, too, capable of sensing, processing, and even initiating independent action. An arm can reach, taste, and manipulate objects without waiting for the central brain’s input. This distributed architecture resembles a biological network or parallel computer, where processing power is decentralized for maximum efficiency (Scheel et al., 2023).

Implication for HNP: The distributed neurology of the octopus shows how intelligence can be decentralized across the body. Each arm functions as a local problem-solver while staying integrated with the whole, reducing bottlenecks and allowing faster, context-specific responses. This is hyperneuroplasticity in action: reconfiguration that is both rapid and distributed, enabling adaptation at multiple levels simultaneously.

Memory and the Vertical Lobe

Despite the autonomy of its arms, the octopus still possesses a central brain with powerful memory capabilities. At the center of this brain lies the vertical lobe (VL), a structure dedicated to learning and memory. Research shows that the VL exhibits both long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD), the same dual processes that underlie memory formation and refinement in mammals (Shomrat & Hochner, 2022). Moreover, the VL is modulated by serotonin, dopamine, octopamine, and nitric oxide, echoing neuromodulatory systems found in vertebrates.

Implication for HNP: The vertical lobe demonstrates how octopuses encode experience rapidly and flexibly, supporting behavioral shifts after very few exposures. This reflects hyperneuroplasticity as efficiency in memory formation, showing that adaptability requires not just distributed architecture but also powerful mechanisms for learning. LTP provides the ability to strengthen connections in response to activity, while LTD offers a complementary mechanism to weaken them, ensuring precision and refinement. Together, LTP and LTD provide the metaplastic foundation for rapid reconfiguration seen both in octopuses and in human systems navigating giftedness, ADHD, autism, or trauma.

RNA Editing as Molecular Plasticity

Perhaps the most striking molecular adaptation in octopuses is their extensive use of RNA editing. Unlike most animals, which rely mainly on DNA mutations for evolutionary change, octopuses edit their RNA transcripts, especially in genes related to neural signaling (Liscovitch-Brauer et al., 2017). Over half of their neural transcripts may be edited, altering ion channels and synaptic proteins in ways that fine-tune excitability and communication.

Implication for HNP: As discussed in a previous article about HNP and epigenetics, RNA editing functions like a molecular-level form of plasticity. This process allows octopuses to adapt their nervous systems without changing their DNA. It creates flexibility in real time, echoing the kind of dynamic adaptability that in humans may arise through epigenetic shifts or trauma-induced recalibration. This editing highlights how deeply adaptability can be embedded into biology.

Behavioral Flexibility and Problem-Solving

Octopuses are renowned for their problem-solving abilities. They can open jars to access food, navigate mazes, and even learn by observing other octopuses. Some individuals develop clear preferences and personalities ranging between bold or shy and quick or methodical. What makes this especially remarkable is how little repetition is required. Where many humans may need repeated practice, octopuses often encode new behaviors after just one or two exposures (Scheel et al., 2023). These one to two exposures may sound familiar to my definition of giftedness found in the article Dimensions of Giftedness, or in the book, Intersection of Intensity: Exploring Giftedness and Trauma (Gently, 2024). 

Implication for HNP: This kind of rapid encoding highlights a system predisposed to extreme efficiency in learning. Their brains are optimized for swift reconfiguration, favoring flexibility over stability.

Regeneration and Systemic Reconfiguration

Perhaps the most dramatic display of octopus adaptability is regeneration. When an octopus loses an arm, it not only regrows the limb; it also reintegrates its neural circuitry into the whole system. Not merely structural repair, this is systemic reconfiguration. The regenerated arm once again becomes a semi-autonomous processing unit, seamlessly integrated with the rest of the nervous system (Godfrey-Smith, 2016).

Implication for HNP: Octopus regeneration demonstrates how adaptability extends beyond the brain into the entire organism. An octopus’s nervous system recalibrates itself as new structures form, reinforcing the idea of plasticity as a whole-system phenomenon. This may be similar to how hyperneuroplastic humans reroute around trauma or damage from strokes or TBIs. 

Sleep, Dreams, and Dynamic Neural States

Octopuses exhibit two-stage sleep patterns, including an active stage marked by dramatic color changes and skin patterning that mirror their waking behaviors. Researchers interpret this as a form of REM-like sleep, suggesting that octopuses dream (Medeiros et al., 2023). Neural activity during these states appears to consolidate experiences, reorganizing information for future use.

Implication for HNP: The octopus brain is not static, even in rest. Its dynamic cycling between sleep states points to a nervous system that continuously remodels itself, reinforcing adaptability through ongoing recalibration. Though not yet addressed in relation to HNP neurotypes, I intend to explore dreaming and dynamic neural states in future articles. 

Evolutionary Context of Extreme Plasticity

All of these features: distributed neurons, vertical lobe memory, RNA editing, regeneration, and dynamic sleep, make sense when viewed through an evolutionary lens. With short lifespans and no cultural learning to pass knowledge forward, octopuses rely fully on their own hyper-adaptable nervous systems. Fragility and brilliance are two sides of the same coin here: they live briefly, yet evolve mechanisms that prioritize immediacy, flexibility, and survival (Godfrey-Smith, 2016).

Implication for HNP: Octopuses show that when stability cannot be assumed, adaptability becomes the prime survival strategy. Their biology exemplifies how pressure for immediacy can produce extraordinary neural dynamism. This is a lesson that resonates with human hyperneuroplasticity and evolutionary neuroscience as well, where evolution is considered an explanation for the prevalence of neurodivergence. 

Octopus as Mascot for the Hyperneuroplastic

Pulling all of these threads together, the octopus becomes a mascot for hyperneuroplasticity (and possibly my next tattoo 😮). Its short lifespan and self-taught intelligence, distributed neurology, powerful vertical lobe memory, RNA editing, problem-solving speed, regenerative abilities, and dynamic sleep cycles all converge on one theme: whole-system adaptability. Each feature highlights a different angle of HNP, whether molecular, neural, behavioral, or systemic. Taken together, they showcase how life can thrive through continuous recalibration instead of the sought-after state of stability. This has striking parallels to human conditions and neurotypes such as autism, ADHD, giftedness, and cPTSD, where research shows heightened neural responsiveness, rapid learning with fewer exposures, and systemic reconfiguration under stress (Markram & Markram, 2010; Abraham & Bear, 1996). In both octopuses and humans, adaptability reflects dynamism beyond deficit, underscoring that what may feel destabilizing can also be a profound source of innovation and survival.

Octopuses remind us that adaptability is a design, not a defect. Their distributed intelligence, RNA editing, rapid learning, regenerative ability, and dynamic sleep all converge on the same theme: hyperneuroplasticity as a way of being. For humans navigating giftedness, neurodivergence, or trauma recovery, the octopus serves as both metaphor and scientific model. It reminds us of our capacity for deep, systemic change and calls us to radically accept a fluidity that can be both barrier and brilliance.

References

Abraham, W. C., & Bear, M. F. (1996). Metaplasticity: The plasticity of synaptic plasticity. Trends in Neurosciences, 19(4), 126–130. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0166-2236(96)80018-X

Gently, P. L. (2024). Intersection of Intensity: Exploring Giftedness and Trauma. Gifted Unlimited LLC.

Godfrey-Smith, P. (2016). Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Li, S., et al. (2022). Cell type diversity in a developing octopus brain. Nature Communications, 13(1), 7438. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35198-1

Liscovitch-Brauer, N., Alon, S., Porath, H. T., Elstein, B., Unger, R., Ziv, T., ... & Eisenberg, E. (2017). Trade-off between transcriptome plasticity and genome evolution in cephalopods. Cell, 169(2), 191-202.e11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2017.03.025

Markram, H., & Markram, K. (2010). The intense world theory – a unifying theory of the neurobiology of autism. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 4, 224. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2010.00224

Medeiros, I. D., et al. (2023). Wake-like skin patterning and neural activity during octopus sleep. Nature, 618(7966), 761–766. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06203-4

Scheel, D., Godfrey-Smith, P., & Lawrence, M. (2023). Primer: Cephalopod learning and memory. Current Biology, 33(16), R790–R795. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.06.067

Shomrat, T., & Hochner, B. (2022). Neurotransmission and neuromodulation systems in the learning and memory network of Octopus vulgaris. Frontiers in Physiology, 13, 905690. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2022.905690

Zolotov, Y., et al. (2023). Connectomics of the Octopus vulgaris vertical lobe reveals unique synaptic architecture. eLife, 12, e84257. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.84257