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Language of fungi derived from their electrical spiking activity

Andrew Adamatzky1

  • 1Unconventional Computing Laboratory, UWE, Bristol, UK.

Royal Society Open Science
|April 15, 2022
PubMed

Insights

Fungi communicate using electrical signals, with distinct species-specific patterns. Analysis reveals fungal "language" complexity comparable to human languages, with split gill fungi exhibiting the most intricate communication.

Area of Science:

  • Mycology
  • Neurobiology
  • Bioelectricity

Background:

  • Fungi generate electrical potential oscillations.
  • Extracellular electrical activity is measurable in fungal mycelium and sporocarps.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To analyze the species-specific electrical activity in four fungi species.
  • To investigate the potential for fungal electrical activity as a communication system.
  • To compare the linguistic complexity of fungal electrical signals with human language.

Main Methods:

  • Recording extracellular electrical potential using differential electrodes.
  • Analyzing spike duration, amplitude, and clustering.
  • Applying linguistic and information complexity analysis to fungal electrical activity patterns.

Main Results:

  • Electrical spiking characteristics are unique to each fungal species, with variations in spike duration (1-21 h) and amplitude (0.03-2.1 mV).
  • Fungal electrical spikes often form trains, suggesting structured communication.
  • Distributions of fungal "word" lengths align with human language patterns.
  • Split gill fungi (S. commune) produce the most complex fungal "sentences" based on algorithmic and Liz-Zempel complexity.

Conclusions:

  • Fungal electrical activity exhibits species-specific patterns that may represent a form of communication.
  • The complexity of fungal electrical signaling shows parallels with human linguistic structures.
  • Further research into fungal bioelectricity could reveal insights into mycelial network information processing.
Keywords:
action potentialelectrical activityfungilanguage

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