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Excitable dynamics of Physarum polycephalum plasmodial nodes under chemotaxis
Rosario L Reserva1, Maria Theresa Mae M Micompal1, Kathleen C Mendoza1
1Department of Physics and Complex Systems Group - PRISM, MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology, Tibanga, Iligan City, 9200, Philippines.
Abstract:
Recent results show that the chemotactic response of uni-cellular decentralized systems such as amoeboid and mammalian cells, is excitable. The same observation has not yet been reported for multi-nucleated decentralized biological systems. Here we present experimental results that shows the Physarum polycephalum plasmodial nodes spatio-temporal chemotactic dynamics as an excitable response. We found a highly optimized signal synthesis method wherein the Physarum nodes employ two intensity thresholds to properly navigate the chemoattractant field and generate corresponding spike dynamics in the node count. The node spike dynamics was found to correspond to the polarized-depolarized transition in the Physarum polycephalum morphology. Validation of our experimental observations via Brownian lattice simulations yields the same quantitative results with our experiments.
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