Intelligence: Maze-solving by an amoeboid organism

@article{Nakagaki2000IntelligenceMB,
  title={Intelligence: Maze-solving by an amoeboid organism},
  author={Toshiyuki Nakagaki and Hiroyasu Yamada and {\'A}gota T{\'o}th},
  journal={Nature},
  year={2000},
  volume={407},
  pages={470-470}
}
The plasmodium of the slime mould Physarum polycephalum is a large amoeba-like cell consisting of a dendritic network of tube-like structures (pseudopodia). It changes its shape as it crawls over a plain agar gel and, if food is placed at two different points, it will put out pseudopodia that connect the two food sources. Here we show that this simple organism has the ability to find the minimum-length solution between two points in a labyrinth. 
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818 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
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Background Citations
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Methods Citations
42
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818 Citations

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Citation Type

Path finding by tube morphogenesis in an amoeboid organism.
TLDR
This work has studied how the plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum, a large amoeboid cell, is able to track the shortest path between two selected points in a labyrinth through a simple cellular mechanism based on interacting cellular rhythms. Expand
Smart behavior of true slime mold in a labyrinth.
  • T. Nakagaki
  • Biology, Medicine
  • Research in microbiology
  • 2001
TLDR
Information processing in the microorganism is discussed to focus on the issue as to whether the maze-solving behavior is akin to primitive intelligence. Expand
Searching strategy of slime mold and its mathematical model
  • Kentaro Ito, R. Kobayashi
  • Computer Science
  • 2017 56th Annual Conference of the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers of Japan (SICE)
  • 2017
TLDR
It is found that slime mold can change the searching strategy by observing the slime mold in the branching lanes and a mathematical model of physarum expanding is made to explain this behavior. Expand
An associative learning experiment using the plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum
TLDR
The plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum, a unicellular and multinuclear giant amoeba that shows adaptive behaviors, seemed to acquire a reversed thermotactic property, a new preference for the lower temperature. Expand
Multi-scaled adaptability in motility and pattern formation of the Physarum plasmodium
TLDR
How the plasmodium generates new motility and morphology is investigated, and it is found that there are allometric relationships between the cell volume and morphology, and between cell size and cell motility. Expand
Fast shortest path optimization inspired by shuttle streaming of Physarum polycephalum
TLDR
This work has proposed mathematical models to mimic the intelligent foraging behavior that can be used to find the shortest path between two points of a graph and found that the convergence of the proposed two versions, Physarum Optimization with Shuttle Streaming and POSS with mutation, are 40-11650 times faster when compared with the currently availablephysarum Solver method. Expand
Milestone V
The plasmodium Physarum polycephalum is a large unicellular,multinuclear amoeba-like slime mold that forms a network of tubes through which nutrients and chemical signals flow [2,3]. It spreads out… Expand
Adaptive Path-Finding and Transport Network Formation by the Amoeba-Like Organism Physarum
TLDR
Some factors that can affect path-finding through networks are reported here to help understand more generally how the organism tries to establish an optimal set of paths in more complex environments and how this behaviour can be captured in relatively simple algorithms. Expand
Diversity in the Chemotactic Behavior of Physarum Plasmodium Induced by Bi-modal Stimuli
TLDR
The diversity of the behaviors of the plasmodium and how these behaviors may arise is demonstrated and a simulation model of the behavior was constructed that replicated the behavioral diversity with a simple combination of molecular apparatuses. Expand
A power law in the exploratory behavior of the Physarum plasmodium
TLDR
It is found that the frequency distribution of the speed of plasmodial locomotion is fitted by power function and the efficiency of the exploration implemented with the patterns from the plas modium is actually effective. Expand
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