Although they don’t have brains, single-celled organisms like the slime mold are capable of communicating what they’ve learned to each other.
This is not a fungus, even though it’s named Slime Mushroom , nor is it an animal or a plant, but rather a single-celled organism .
This strange slime resembles a patch of moss on tree trunks. Although it has no brain structure, it has the ability to learn to adapt to its environment.
The slime molds are classified into two groups: the cocellular slime molds (Myxomycetes) and the cellular slime molds (Acrasiomycetes) , formerly classified as Myxomycetes. During the vegetative phase, they have no cell walls and they absorb nutrients or get food in an amoeba fashion; similar to that of protozoa. However, they form cellulose walls during the reproductive stage and produce walled spores within the chamber spores, and as such resemble fungi.
They are found all over the world, usually on the undersides of leaves and logs, where they love to hunt fungi and bacteria.
That is the result of a study published by the Center for Biological Cognitive Research (CNRS, University of Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier). Recently, the same team has published more surprising results, that this slime mold is able to transmit what it learns to other slime mold cells if they combine.
The slime mold is a single-celled organism.
Imagine being able to combine with someone, absorb their knowledge and then separate and make that knowledge yours. This may sound like a scene from a Hollywood X-Men movie at first glance, but with slime molds, they really do.
The slime mold, scientifically known as Physarum polycephalum , is a single-celled organism that lives in the forest floor environment, under the trees. CNRS scientists Audrey Dussutour and David Vogel have successfully grown slime molds in the lab and trained them to move through innocuous but permeable substances such as coffee or salt on their way to food.
The two taught more than 2,000 slime mold cells that salt is not dangerous by letting them cross a salt-covered bridge to get to the food. And individual slime molds have learned to pass through salt crystals on their way by dissolving with them. This group is called the Experience group.
Another group of 2,000 slime mold cells were passed over a salt-free bridge to obtain food, which was marked as the Naive group, as opposed to the Experience group.
After a period of training, the research team combined the two groups to form a third group called the mixed group. The slime mold cells of all three groups had to cross the salt bridge to get to the food, and as a result the mixed cell group moved just as quickly as the experimental group, faster than the naive group.
This demonstrates that knowledge about the harmlessness of salt was shared from the experienced group to the naive group when they were combined. Regardless of whether there are three or four cells in the cluster, as long as there is one cell of the experience group, the rest of the cells can transmit information.
These cells are trained in the laboratory.
To test whether the information transfer really took place, the team divided into two subgroups, the 1-hour mixed group and the 3-hour mixed group, to perform the salt bridge experiment again.
As a result, only cells in the 3-hour mixed group were able to pass through the salt while the naive and 1-hour mixed cells were slowed down by having to dodge salt along the way. The above results have shown the learning ability of slime mold cells.
When observed with a microscope, the team found that after 3 hours of incorporation, a vein was formed at the contact points between the cells. This vein is definitely the place where cells exchange information with each other.
The mode of transmission of this information is the challenge that the team needs to unravel, and also needs to test how much information can be transmitted at one time. If cell A can avoid salt and cell B can avoid coffee, can both knowledge be transmitted when combined?
While the biological problems of the algorithm remain to be determined, this study provides insight into the primitive mechanisms of decision-making and shows that the underlying principles of decision-making are Decisions, information processing, and perceptions shared among biological systems are extremely diverse.
The researchers also found that the slime mold Physarum polycephalum can reabsorb parts of the body if it extends the probes into an area that is inappropriate or of no interest. But once it has found and eaten a nutritious meal, those thick tubes stay in place so it can quickly snap back into place should food reappear.
The slime mold Physarum polycephalum can reabsorb parts of the body.
“The gradual softening process is where existing imprints of previous food sources are played out and where information is stored and retrieved,” said biophysicist Mirna Kramar of the Max Planck Institute in Germany. Past feed events are embedded in the pipe diameter hierarchy, specifically in the arrangement of thick and thin tubes in the network.For softeners that are now shipped, thick tubes in the network act as a highway in the transport network, enabling rapid transport across the entire organism.Previous encounters imprinted in the network architecture are decisive for the future direction of migration. “.
That has similarities with how the human brain works. One must be cautious when drawing similarities between molds and the human brain, but there are some interesting similarities that can help us understand how information encoding works in different types of organisms.
In this case, the synapses, which send information between neurons, strengthen as we learn and grow stronger as we use them, but can grow weaker if we don’t do this, this is akin to the tubes of a slime block, they will grow thicker at the sites of interest, but will die or be reabsorbed if their presence is no longer useful to the body. creature.
“It is remarkable that organisms rely on such a simple mechanism yet manipulate it in such a sophisticated way. These results represent an important piece of the puzzle in understanding biological behavior. This ancient artifact also shows basic universal principles of behavior,” says biophysicist Karen Alim of the Max Planck Institute in Germany.