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

Abstract

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.