system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Do octopuses show reduced cognitive abilities/lower intelligence after losing one or more of its tentacles?

So I know that octopuses have an incredible neurological system in place with a main brain and one smaller one in each tentacle, plus an extensive nervous system.

When an octopus gets attacked and loses an arm/tentacle it will eventually regrow, but:

Will the mental capabilities/intelligence also reduce for that time?
Alternatively are these little "sub-brains" mainly necessary to control the arm they are in?


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*^octopi ^is ^wrong ^and ^never ^been ^a ^word.*
gpt
I am pretty sure that is not the case. "Smaller brains" is just a term to facilitate human understanding. Ocotopuses dont have something like 9 different thought processes or anything of the sort. These "brains" are larger assimilations of neurons, not distinct structures, like this wording suggests. The purpose of those is to speed up the reaction to sensory input, not to think. The arms do have a way to kind of communicate with each other while bypassing the brain in the octopuses head. 
This is completely different approach to intelligence compared to our own. 
To answer your question: no, octopuses do not lose intelligence when losing an arm. Its likely, that they would not be influenced by it at all, since every arm can perform every task.