Dresden 2017 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 34: Posters - Physics of Physarum polycephalum and Other Slime Molds (Focus Session)

BP 34.3: Poster

Dienstag, 21. März 2017, 14:00–16:00, P2-OG1

Decision making in Physarum polycephalum as a basis for biomimetical solutions to optimization problems — •Nelly von Puttkamer^1,2, Ann-Marie Parrey¹, Anja Bammann¹, Adrian Fessel¹, Erik Bernitt¹, and Hans-Günther Döbereiner¹ — ¹Institut für Biophysik, Universität Bremen — ²IS Bionik, Hochschule Bremen

Everyone of us is faced with multiple decisions daily, ranging from personal ones to those made on headquarters level. Quite often, although the probability of an unpleasant outcome or the impact is not known, making a decision is inevitable. Albeit humans are outfitted with a sophisticated neural system, there is a lot to learn about the biological basis of decision making from simpler life forms. Previous observations of Physarum polycephalum, a unicellular, multinucleate slime mold, demonstrated a higher complexity of decision making than expected for a non-conscious organism. In this work we show that, during foraging, the plasmodium of P. polycephalum takes a calculated risk, as present in the form of potassium chloride in the substrate. Risk was quantified by measuring the relative plasmodial area intruding regions with varying salt concentration. The corresponding probability was found to decrease with salt concentration. With a higher risk, the variances of the paths taken by the plasmodium decrease as well, hinting at a lower exploration of the substrate presenting a risk. These findings give an insight into decision making on the lowest level and without a central nervous system. We envision our findings to be useful in fields where risky decisions are inevitably made, for example in economics.