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Relation between learning process and morphology of transport tube network in plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum

The question of whether a single-celled organism without a brain could have functions such as learning and memory has been the subject of much debate in recent years. The plasmodium of the true slime mold, Physarum polycephalum, is an ideal model organism for such a question. The plasmodium exhibits...

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Autores principales: Yoneoka, Emiri, Takamatsu, Atsuko
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10667701/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38020888
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2023.1249165
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author Yoneoka, Emiri
Takamatsu, Atsuko
author_facet Yoneoka, Emiri
Takamatsu, Atsuko
author_sort Yoneoka, Emiri
collection PubMed
description The question of whether a single-celled organism without a brain could have functions such as learning and memory has been the subject of much debate in recent years. The plasmodium of the true slime mold, Physarum polycephalum, is an ideal model organism for such a question. The plasmodium exhibits behaviors that resemble intelligence, including solving mazes, mimicking optimal rail transportation networks, predicting the weather, and solving traveling salesman problems. In addition, the plasmodium has recently been shown to have the simplest form of learning: habituation. In the experiments in which plasmodia were repeatedly allowed to cross bridges containing aversive chemicals, the habituation behavior has been confirmed. It has been shown that the habituation process involves chemicals that are stored internally. However, it is not clear how these chemicals result in change in the behavior of plasmodium during habituation learning. This study focused on the transport tube network formed in plasmodium during the above experiments. Then, the role of the network morphology in the habituation learning process was investigated. The results showed that the network morphology changes from tree to mesh type during habituation learning, and disrupting the learned network reduces habituation behavior. In addition, it was shown that the thickness oscillation frequency depends on the network morphology. The study found that in the plasmodium of P. polycephalum, a primitive organism without a brain, transport tube networks, instead of neuronal networks, play an important role in habituation learning and the resulting decision making.
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spelling pubmed-106677012023-01-01 Relation between learning process and morphology of transport tube network in plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum Yoneoka, Emiri Takamatsu, Atsuko Front Cell Dev Biol Cell and Developmental Biology The question of whether a single-celled organism without a brain could have functions such as learning and memory has been the subject of much debate in recent years. The plasmodium of the true slime mold, Physarum polycephalum, is an ideal model organism for such a question. The plasmodium exhibits behaviors that resemble intelligence, including solving mazes, mimicking optimal rail transportation networks, predicting the weather, and solving traveling salesman problems. In addition, the plasmodium has recently been shown to have the simplest form of learning: habituation. In the experiments in which plasmodia were repeatedly allowed to cross bridges containing aversive chemicals, the habituation behavior has been confirmed. It has been shown that the habituation process involves chemicals that are stored internally. However, it is not clear how these chemicals result in change in the behavior of plasmodium during habituation learning. This study focused on the transport tube network formed in plasmodium during the above experiments. Then, the role of the network morphology in the habituation learning process was investigated. The results showed that the network morphology changes from tree to mesh type during habituation learning, and disrupting the learned network reduces habituation behavior. In addition, it was shown that the thickness oscillation frequency depends on the network morphology. The study found that in the plasmodium of P. polycephalum, a primitive organism without a brain, transport tube networks, instead of neuronal networks, play an important role in habituation learning and the resulting decision making. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-11-10 /pmc/articles/PMC10667701/ /pubmed/38020888 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2023.1249165 Text en Copyright © 2023 Yoneoka and Takamatsu. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Cell and Developmental Biology
Yoneoka, Emiri
Takamatsu, Atsuko
Relation between learning process and morphology of transport tube network in plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum
title Relation between learning process and morphology of transport tube network in plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum
title_full Relation between learning process and morphology of transport tube network in plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum
title_fullStr Relation between learning process and morphology of transport tube network in plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum
title_full_unstemmed Relation between learning process and morphology of transport tube network in plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum
title_short Relation between learning process and morphology of transport tube network in plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum
title_sort relation between learning process and morphology of transport tube network in plasmodium of physarum polycephalum
topic Cell and Developmental Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10667701/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38020888
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2023.1249165
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