气候变化领域集成服务门户(CCPortal): Encoding memory in tube diameter hierarchy of living flow network

CCPortal

DOI	10.1073/pnas.2007815118
	Encoding memory in tube diameter hierarchy of living flow network
	Kramar M.; Alim K.
发表日期	2021
ISSN	00278424
卷号	118 期号:10
英文摘要	The concept of memory is traditionally associated with organisms possessing a nervous system. However, even very simple organisms store information about past experiences to thrive in a complex environment—successfully exploiting nutrient sources, avoiding danger, and warding off predators. How can simple organisms encode information about their environment? We here follow how the giant unicellular slime mold Physarum polycephalum responds to a nutrient source. We find that the network-like body plan of the organism itself serves to encode the location of a nutrient source. The organism entirely consists of interlaced tubes of varying diameters. Now, we observe that these tubes grow and shrink in diameter in response to a nutrient source, thereby imprinting the nutrient’s location in the tube diameter hierarchy. Combining theoretical model and experimental data, we reveal how memory is encoded: a nutrient source locally releases a softening agent that gets transported by the cytoplasmic flows within the tubular network. Tubes receiving a lot of softening agent grow in diameter at the expense of other tubes shrinking. Thereby, the tubes’ capacities for flow-based transport get permanently upgraded toward the nutrient location, redirecting future decisions and migration. This demonstrates that nutrient location is stored in and retrieved from the networks’ tube diameter hierarchy. Our findings explain how network-forming organisms like slime molds and fungi thrive in complex environments. We here identify a flow networks’ version of associative memory—very likely of relevance for the plethora of living flow networks as well as for bioinspired design. © 2021 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
英文关键词	Adaptive networks; Behavior; Decision making; Flow networks
语种	英语
scopus关键词	article; associative memory; cytoplasmic streaming; decision making; imprinting (psychology); mold; nonhuman; nutrient; Physarum polycephalum
来源期刊	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
文献类型	期刊论文
条目标识符	http://gcip.llas.ac.cn/handle/2XKMVOVA/180429
作者单位	Biological Physics and Morphogenesis Group, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Göttingen, 37077, Germany; Physik Department, Technische Universität München, Garching, 85748, Germany
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Kramar M.,Alim K.. Encoding memory in tube diameter hierarchy of living flow network[J],2021,118(10).
APA	Kramar M.,&Alim K..(2021).Encoding memory in tube diameter hierarchy of living flow network.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America,118(10).
MLA	Kramar M.,et al."Encoding memory in tube diameter hierarchy of living flow network".Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 118.10(2021).