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Learning in the Single-Cell Organism Physarum polycephalum: Effect of Propofol

Propofol belongs to a class of molecules that are known to block learning and memory in mammals, including rodents and humans. Interestingly, learning and memory are not tied to the presence of a nervous system. There are several lines of evidence indicating that single-celled organisms also have th...

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Autores principales: Kippenberger, Stefan, Pipa, Gordon, Steinhorst, Katja, Zöller, Nadja, Kleemann, Johannes, Özistanbullu, Deniz, Kaufmann, Roland, Scheller, Bertram
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10094176/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37047260
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms24076287
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author Kippenberger, Stefan
Pipa, Gordon
Steinhorst, Katja
Zöller, Nadja
Kleemann, Johannes
Özistanbullu, Deniz
Kaufmann, Roland
Scheller, Bertram
author_facet Kippenberger, Stefan
Pipa, Gordon
Steinhorst, Katja
Zöller, Nadja
Kleemann, Johannes
Özistanbullu, Deniz
Kaufmann, Roland
Scheller, Bertram
author_sort Kippenberger, Stefan
collection PubMed
description Propofol belongs to a class of molecules that are known to block learning and memory in mammals, including rodents and humans. Interestingly, learning and memory are not tied to the presence of a nervous system. There are several lines of evidence indicating that single-celled organisms also have the capacity for learning and memory which may be considered as basal intelligence. Here, we introduce a new experimental model for testing the learning ability of Physarum polycephalum, a model organism frequently used to study single-celled “intelligence”. In this study, the impact of propofol on Physarum’s “intelligence” was tested. The model consists of a labyrinth of subsequent bifurcations in which food (oat flakes soaked with coconut oil-derived medium chain triglycerides [MCT] and soybean oil-derived long chain triglycerides [LCT]) or propofol in MCT/LCT) is placed in one of each Y-branch. In this setting, it was tested whether Physarum memorized the rewarding branch. We saw that Physarum was a quick learner when capturing the first bifurcations of the maze; thereafter, the effect decreased, perhaps due to reaching a state of satiety. In contrast, when oat flakes were soaked with propofol, Physarum’s preference for oat flakes declined significantly. Several possible actions, including the blocking of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptor signaling, are suggested to account for this behavior, many of which can be tested in our new model.
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spelling pubmed-100941762023-04-13 Learning in the Single-Cell Organism Physarum polycephalum: Effect of Propofol Kippenberger, Stefan Pipa, Gordon Steinhorst, Katja Zöller, Nadja Kleemann, Johannes Özistanbullu, Deniz Kaufmann, Roland Scheller, Bertram Int J Mol Sci Communication Propofol belongs to a class of molecules that are known to block learning and memory in mammals, including rodents and humans. Interestingly, learning and memory are not tied to the presence of a nervous system. There are several lines of evidence indicating that single-celled organisms also have the capacity for learning and memory which may be considered as basal intelligence. Here, we introduce a new experimental model for testing the learning ability of Physarum polycephalum, a model organism frequently used to study single-celled “intelligence”. In this study, the impact of propofol on Physarum’s “intelligence” was tested. The model consists of a labyrinth of subsequent bifurcations in which food (oat flakes soaked with coconut oil-derived medium chain triglycerides [MCT] and soybean oil-derived long chain triglycerides [LCT]) or propofol in MCT/LCT) is placed in one of each Y-branch. In this setting, it was tested whether Physarum memorized the rewarding branch. We saw that Physarum was a quick learner when capturing the first bifurcations of the maze; thereafter, the effect decreased, perhaps due to reaching a state of satiety. In contrast, when oat flakes were soaked with propofol, Physarum’s preference for oat flakes declined significantly. Several possible actions, including the blocking of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptor signaling, are suggested to account for this behavior, many of which can be tested in our new model. MDPI 2023-03-27 /pmc/articles/PMC10094176/ /pubmed/37047260 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms24076287 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Communication
Kippenberger, Stefan
Pipa, Gordon
Steinhorst, Katja
Zöller, Nadja
Kleemann, Johannes
Özistanbullu, Deniz
Kaufmann, Roland
Scheller, Bertram
Learning in the Single-Cell Organism Physarum polycephalum: Effect of Propofol
title Learning in the Single-Cell Organism Physarum polycephalum: Effect of Propofol
title_full Learning in the Single-Cell Organism Physarum polycephalum: Effect of Propofol
title_fullStr Learning in the Single-Cell Organism Physarum polycephalum: Effect of Propofol
title_full_unstemmed Learning in the Single-Cell Organism Physarum polycephalum: Effect of Propofol
title_short Learning in the Single-Cell Organism Physarum polycephalum: Effect of Propofol
title_sort learning in the single-cell organism physarum polycephalum: effect of propofol
topic Communication
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10094176/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37047260
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms24076287
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