Morphological and Electrical Properties of Proteinoid-Actin Networks

Area of Science:

• Biophysics
• Materials Science
• Computational Neuroscience

Background:

• Proteinoids, or thermal proteins, are formed by heating amino acids and create hollow microspheres.
• These microspheres exhibit electrical potential oscillations.
• Actin is a crucial filament-forming protein in eukaryotic cellular functions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To synthesize and characterize networks of proteinoid microspheres spanned by actin filaments.
• To investigate the morphology and electrical oscillatory dynamics of these proteinoid-actin networks.
• To analyze the computational capabilities of these networks in response to electrical stimulation.

Main Methods:

• Synthesis of randomly organized networks of proteinoid microspheres and actin filaments.
• Study of network morphology and electrical potential oscillatory dynamics.
• Analysis of network responses to electrical signals from chaotic systems (logistic maps, Lorenz attractor, Rossler oscillator, FitzHugh-Nagumo system).

Main Results:

• Proteinoid-actin networks exhibit oscillatory electrical potential dynamics.
• The networks attenuated external electrical signals from complex models.
• Emergent logical patterns consistent with Boolean logic gates were observed, indicating computational properties.

Conclusions:

• Proteinoid-actin networks demonstrate inherent computational abilities through their dynamic and architectural properties.
• These findings provide a foundation for creating proto-neural networks.
• The study opens avenues for implementing neuromorphic computation using these bio-inspired materials.