Berlin 2018 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 10: Postersession II

BP 10.48: Poster

Monday, March 12, 2018, 17:30–19:30, Poster C

Morphology to encode information — •Mirna Kramar and Karen Alim — Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organizaton, Göttingen

The challenges of living in a complex environment require organisms to develop reliable sensory and information processing mechanisms. For an organism that explores its environment by foraging, remembering sources of food or harm is essential for survival. We study Physarum polycephalum as a model organism at the verge between simple and complex life. The body of P. polycephalum is a network of cytoplasm-filled tubes lacking any organizing centre. This unicellular, multinucleate organism relies on shuttle streaming of its cytoplasm caused by peristaltic contractions of the actomyosin lining the tubes. As a response to stimuli, P. polycephalum reorganises its network to exploit a food source or avoid harm. The mechanism by which P. polycephalum memorises information about stimuli is not yet explained. Potentially there are three interrelated ways of information encoding, acting on different timescales: the peristaltic contractions (short term), the morphology of the network (intermediate) and the deposition of extracellular slime (long term memory). In particular, we here focus on the mechanism of information encoding in the network morphology, achieved by reinforcing of important connections and pruning of unimportant ones. To study this kind of memory, we use time series of images of the foraging organism, as well as simulations of network dynamics.