Abstract
Throughout evolution, living systems have developed mechanisms to make adaptive decisions in the face of complex and changing environmental conditions. Most organisms make such decisions despite lacking a neural architecture. This is the case of the acellular slime mold Physarum polycephalum that has demonstrated remarkable information processing and problem-solving abilities. Previous studies suggest that the membrane of P. polycephalum plays an important role in integrating and processing information leading to the selection of a resource to exploit. The cyclical contraction-relaxation pattern of the membrane changes with the local quality of the environment, and individual contractile regions within a P. polycephalum can entrain neighboring regions, providing a potential mechanism for information processing and propagation. In this study, we use an information-theoretic tool, transfer entropy, to study the flow of information in single tubule segments of P. polycephalum in a binary choice between two food sources. We test P. polycephalum tubules in two food choice conditions, where the two available options are either symmetric in their nutrient concentrations or with one more concentrated in nutrients than the other (i.e., asymmetric). We measure the contractile pattern of the P. polycephalum membrane and use these data to explore the direction and amount of information transfer along the tubule as a function of the cell’s final decision. We find that the direction of information transfer is different in the two experimental conditions, and the amount of information transferred is inversely proportional to the distance between different contractile regions. Our results show that regions playing a leading role in information transfer changes with the decision-making challenges faced by P. polycephalum.
Highlights
In order to develop, survive and reproduce, all living organisms have to make decisions regarding what resource to exploit, which microclimate to inhabit, when to forage in an environment, etc
We find that the direction of information transfer in a P. polycephalum tubule differs with the food choice condition presented and the amount of information transferred is inversely proportional to the distance between the contractile regions along a P. polycephalum tubule
Our results provide a characterization of information transfer in P. polycephalum, which can inform and guide the design of future experiments for understanding the functioning of this organism, and contribute to a more general understanding of the role of information and its fundamental processes— storage, transfer, and modification (Crutchfield, 1994)—in other distributed computing systems
Summary
Survive and reproduce, all living organisms have to make decisions regarding what resource to exploit, which microclimate to inhabit, when to forage in an environment, etc. The coupling between the neighboring regions triggers a change in the pattern of membrane contractions throughout the cell, followed by the movement of the cell toward attractive and away from repulsive stimuli (Durham and Ridgway, 1976; Matsumoto et al, 1986; Miyake et al, 1994) This coupling is a potential mechanism for transferring information about the quality of the local environment to distant regions of the cell. This information processing mechanism in P. polycephalum is part of the broader class of distributed decision-making mechanisms present in numerous biological systems (Miyake et al, 1996). Our results provide a characterization of information transfer in P. polycephalum, which can inform and guide the design of future experiments for understanding the functioning of this organism, and contribute to a more general understanding of the role of information and its fundamental processes— storage, transfer, and modification (Crutchfield, 1994)—in other distributed computing systems
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