Adaptive behavior and learning in slime moulds: the role of oscillations

" The slime mould Physarum polycephalum, an aneural organism, uses information from previous experiences to adjust its behaviour, but the mechanisms by which this is accomplished remain unknown. This article examines the possible role of oscillations in learning and memory in slime moulds."

Although paper only mentions chemical oscillations it must be taken into consideration that beyond these, biophysical and electromagnetic dynamic may be surely at their roots as is viewed in other papers. For example in [1] it has been found that electromagnetic resonance triggers all other forms of resonances like mechanical, ionic, etc. In [2] The authors explain that electromagnetic fields in the brain allow the integration and assemblage of the different kind of networks (neural networks, glial, extracellular molecular, and fluid channels networks).

There are more clues like that the collective oscillations of ions generate endogenous electromagnetic fields [3] and that there are serious indications that there is information encoded both in the amplitude modulation and in the frequency modulation of Ca2+ oscillations for example [4]:

" Decoding is used by the cell to interpret the information carried by the Ca2 + oscillation []. This information deciphering occurs when one or several intracellular molecules sense the signal and change their activities accordingly. The process is similar to electromagnetic radiation being received by an antenna on a radio and translated into sound. Mathematical modeling of a generic Ca2 + sensitive protein has shown that it is possible to decode Ca2 + oscillations on the basis of the frequency itself, the duration of the single transients or the amplitude." {Credits 1}

And that the exact ionic form is no important, but the biophysical effect that they generate, for example in [5]:

" .. It is important to mention that the same effect was obtained using any method of depolarization of Vmem (by modulating chlorine, sodium, potassium, or hydrogen channels). This in turn indicates the primary role of a purely physiological perturbation – disturbance in Vmem in the appearance of a metastatic phenotype, and not in case of any specific gene product or ionic disturbances." {Credits 2}

[1] Ghosh, S., Sahu, S., Agrawal, L., Shiga, T., & Bandyopadhyay, A. (2016). Inventing a co-axial atomic resolution patch clamp to study a single resonating protein complex and ultra-low power communication deep inside a living neuron cell. Journal of integrative neuroscience, 15(04), 403-433.

[2] Agnati, L. F., Marcoli, M., Maura, G., Woods, A., & Guidolin, D. (2018). The brain as a “hyper-network”: the key role of neural networks as main producers of the integrated brain actions especially via the “broadcasted” neuroconnectomics. Journal of Neural Transmission, 125(6), 883-897.

[3] Sharma, S. K., Vijay, S., Gore, S., Dore, T. M., & Jagannathan, R. (2020). Measuring Cellular Ion Transport by Magnetoencephalography. ACS Omega.

[4] Smedler, Erik, and Per Uhlén. "Frequency decoding of calcium oscillations." Biochimica Et Biophysica Acta (BBA)-General Subjects 1840.3 (2014): 964-969.

[5] Draguta, Ilarion, Mustea, Anatolie, Popescu, Constantin, Iurcu, Cornel, & Palade, Valeriu. (2019). Disturbance of bioelectric transmission in carcinogenesis. Moldovan Medical Journal, 62 (2), 33–37.

{Credits 1} 🎪 Smedler, E., & Uhlén, P. (2014). Frequency decoding of calcium oscillations. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA)-General Subjects, 1840(3), 964-969. © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

{Credits 2} 🎪 Draguta, Ilarion, Mustea, Anatolie, Popescu, Constantin, Iurcu, Cornel, & Palade, Valeriu. (2019). Disturbance of bioelectric transmission in carcinogenesis. Moldovan Medical Journal, 62 (2), 33–37. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3233923. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.