Fuse, Pass And Learn; Team Learning Activities Discovered In Brainless Slime Molds

A group of Australian biologists discovered that Physarum polycephalum slime mold, a brainless and neuron less single-cell organism, can learn from its previous experiences. It then pairs with other slime molds and passes on the experience and learning. The presence of such organized team learning activities in a unicellular organism is extremely surprising.

Previously conducted experiments by French scientists David Vogel and Audrey Dussutour revealed that the slime molds confer learning from experience trait, which was further studied in a following experiment. It was found that the already learnt slime molds can pass their experience to naïve molds by fusing with them, Sydney Morning Herald reported.

The experiment conducted at the Research Centre on Animal Cognition was done by placing a bitter tasting barrier between the molds and their food source. It was observed that the slime molds started ignoring the barrier to reach their food. Scientists call this method of learning "habituation."

Team Learning Activities Based on Fuse and Learn

In a similar experiment done by Dr. Dussutour and Dr. Vogel, a salt barrier was placed between a food source and 2,000 slime molds. For another group of 2,000 slime molds, a saltless bridge was placed before the food. It was found that the habituated and "naive" slime molds were fused and the message of ignoring the salt bridge was immediately passed on to the naive molds.

The presence of such team learning activities has never been detected in any other unicellular organisms. "Most people thought that it was impossible for a cell to learn," but "we've tried this now with more than 2000 slime moulds. It can't be an accident," Dr. Dussutour ssaid.

In response to the new findings, Tanya Latty, a biologist at the University of Sydney, said, "I think we're beginning to realize that brains are not prerequisites for complex and interesting behavior."

The scientist wrote in their recent publication in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. "Slime molds are capable of habituation, a simple form of learning, when repeatedly exposed to an innocuous repellent, despite lacking neurons and comprising only a single cell." This challenges the previously accepted notion that team learning activities are possible only in life forms with a highly advanced brain.