Plants 'can think and remember', nervous system discovered

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by common_sense_seeker, Jul 15, 2010.

  1. common_sense_seeker Bicho Voador & Bicho Sugador Valued Senior Member

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    Plants 'can think and remember'. Wow, I thought this anyway after watching my indoor yellow tomato plant growing against my skylight. What larks we have.
     
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  3. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    I want to know what kind of information the plants received.
     
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  5. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    I think the word 'information' is wholly misleading. Plants merely have chemical responses to light.
     
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  7. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    I agree. I find it interesting but I'm a bit skeptical of what they say about the immune system and how it depends on different colors of light.
     
  8. Hipparchia Registered Senior Member

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    I am fairly sure that all of my visual perception is ultimately nothing more than a chemical response.
     
  9. kmguru Staff Member

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    Is not it that Plants have similar complex genes as animal world?
     
  10. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    A matter of definitions, perhaps

    It's a matter of perspective. If "information" can only be defined according to certain restrictive demands, you are exactly correct. Broader definitions, however, such as information as a pattern, are functionally appropriate in Karpinski's context.

    Professor Christine Foyer, a botanist from University of Leeds, explained the implications:

    "Plants have to survive stresses, such as drought or cold, and live through it and keep growing," she told BBC News.

    "This requires an appraisal of the situation and an appropriate response - that's a form of intelligence.

    "What this study has done is link two signalling pathways together... and the electrical signalling pathway is incredibly rapid, so the whole plant could respond immediately to high [levels of] light."


    (BBC)

    This is an important outcome in botany; I've known people who consider themselves scientifically inclined, but for some reason seem to think of plants according to this bizarre context in which there is no direct response to stimulus, and no deeper process driving a plant's life. I mean, they never came right out and said it, but, you know, it's like sap just magically turns to bark, or something. You know, if you damage a tree and it heals, it's ... well, apparently, it's magic. Because the plant doesn't feel, and thus cannot know when it needs to heal damage. That sort of thing. And I'm aware that doesn't make sense, but then again, those folks are often making such assertions and implications while forsaking their scientific inclinations in favor of moral assertions.

    And now they have something to think about. I can't wait to see what they come up with next.

    (I should also note that I've been expecting this botanical result for a while. To the one, it was an intuitive expectation; to the other, I knew scientists were getting close at least last year, when reading about the relationship between ants and acacias.)
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Gill, Victoria. "Plants 'can think and remember'". BBC News Online. July 14, 2010. BBC.co.uk. July 15, 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10598926

    —————. "Acacia plant controls ants with chemical". BBC News Online. December 27, 2009. News.BBC.co.uk. July 15, 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8383577.stm
     
  11. Doreen Valued Senior Member

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    But the point was that the information spread out throughout the whole plant. Or the reaction spread out through the whole plant. One portion of one leaf could be stimulated and the entire plant would react: iow something parallel to at least a primitive nervous system.
     
  12. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    It's not parallel to a primitive nervous system unless it has nerves. Plants have ion channels - but that's hardly news, everything does. The authors are just trying to stir up some interest.
     
  13. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Interesting but its not even evidence for plant stimulus-response system to even approach the complexity of a jelly fish.
     
  14. Doreen Valued Senior Member

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    That would be 'having a nervous system' if plants had nerves.
    So we knew already that stimulating one portion of a plant, in this case a leaf, would cause metabolic changes in other portions of the plant - other leaves?
     
  15. Michael 歌舞伎 Valued Senior Member

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    It's not really "parallel" to a nervous system - which communicates via specialized receptor neurons and nerves.


    Let me explain it this way. Ionic channels and ion cell-cell communication is well documented in plants. Even the structures of the voltage gated receptor channels are well known. As a matter of fact, algae are routinely used in neuroscience lab-courses to demonstrate examples of volatge gated channels and cell-cell communication that's been evolutionary conserved all the way over to neural cells. BUT, the channels do behave differently. So, even given all this, no one would say algae are primitive NS. It's just not correct. It's more correct to say algae have ion channels similar to those used in our nervous system.

    Just to nail this one, here's another way at explaining what I mean. Heart tissue has two types of cells. Pacemaker and contractile. Pacemaker cells communicate via action potentials to contractile cells which also have action potentials this spreads rapidly all over the heart and causes it to beat.
    - Both heart cells and neurons have Action Potential.
    - Both communicate rapidly using ions.
    - Both use somewhat similar channels and ions (Na, Ca, K)
    - "Information" from the AV node at the top spreads all across the entire heart in seconds using action potential and ion channels somewhat similar to neurons.

    No one is going to say a heart is a parallel primitive nervous system or that it "remembers" or "thinks" and to be honest heart tissue is a lot closer in related function to nervous tissue than plants are. I mean, as you know the NS regulated heart rate both indirectly by hormone release and directly by being wired right into it. Even though info flows from the CNS to the heart directly, even still, no one thinks of the heart as parallel NS.

    Does that make sense?

    The authors are misconstruing their findings to get public debate and ultimately more funding - which I agree it's good to get data to the public in an interesting way, BUT, it's at the cost of being scientifically truthful and is actually (as you can see) confusing at best.
     
  16. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Notes Around

    In this case, I think the information Phlog was referring to was simple wavelengths, which is, by more common definitions, a strange application of the word. But, as I noted, there are other treatments of the word that make it appropriate.

    Part of what caught botanists by surprise in this is the speed by which the plant responded. To reiterate Foyer at University of Leeds: "What this study has done is link two signalling pathways together ... and the electrical signalling pathway is incredibly rapid ...." (Gill)

    Generally speaking, we can expect plants to develop seasonal rhythms, such as both Foyer and Karpinski—"Every day or week of the season has ... a characteristic light quality"—refer to. This could be described as an evolutionary outcome. But part of the issue here is deviation from seasonal rhythm. That is, rather than natural cycles coinciding—e.g., the plant's biological functions and the natural seasons—Karpinski and his colleagues are suggesting a very immediate adaptability about some plants.

    Additionally, the experiments with light and pathogens seems to suggest plants can in some way remember data, and condition responses to specific stimuli. Such a notion is very nearly Pavlovian.

    • • •​

    I think where your comparison encounters trouble is in the idea that the heart is a component of a larger system, while the plant is a system within itself. That is, there are additional components and processes between the environment and the heart. The heart responds to specific stimuli becuse the signal has been translated for that purpose. If you drop a heart off a cliff, it will not beat faster. But if you drop a person off a cliff, the eyes and ears, at least, will perceive the motion, the brain will process what that means and respond by sending signals out through pathways that lead to various parts of the body, including the heart, which in turn respond appropriately to their programming.

    If you shine a light on the heart, it will not in and of itself respond. But if you shine a light into the eyes, the brain will interpret and respond, and the heart's action will be subject to the brain.

    The heart is a component of an organism. The plant is an organism in itself.

    In recent times, we have found nature to be far more subtle and complex than previously estimated. And as we find that complexity is not simply reserved to the animal kingdom, but also includes plants, we need to consider both definitions and what those definitions imply. In this case, it is equally possible that both the scientists and the dissent are overstating the implications. However, all things considered, I doubt the degree of overstatement is equal.

    • • •​

    Rebecca Boyle reports for Popular Science:

    Terence Murphy, a plant biology professor at the University of California-Davis who was not involved in the research, said shining light on that first leaf could have any number of effects.

    "The leaf would be loaded up with starch, maybe; that's going to have a real effect on how it communicates through the phloem (vascular system) to other leaves. It's not unreasonable that you could illuminate one leaf and affect the other leaves," he said.

    The trick is finding out how the other leaves are informed -- and that's what appears to have been done in the Polish study. Bundle sheath cells surround the veins in leaves, stems and roots, so it's reasonable to think they transmit the electrical impulse, Murphy said.

    Biologists have long known that plants can remember -- they need to know whether they've gone through a cold season before they can germinate in the spring, for instance. It's not memory as we know it, but a prolonged change in plant internal systems that causes effects later.

    What's more, scientists already know plants transmit electrical signals in response to a stimulus, just as nerves do. This is easily measured using a basic electrode setup, according to Murphy.

    Karpinski is apparently well-known among biologists for this kind of work, and it doesn't yet seem he is regarded as any particular laughingstock.

    But here's the thing: People tend to regard plants as fairly simple evolutionary outcomes. Sunflowers, for instance, are usually explained according to the process that, as they collect sunlight, the plant grows in a certain way that changes the position of the flower such that it appears to deliberately follow the light. One can assert, in that context, that a sunflower exhibits a coincidence of responses that are evolutionarily favorable.

    With arabidopsis plants, at least, the new suggestion is that plants are capable of specific behavior. This is understandably unsettling to some, though further discussion in the scientific community and future experiments will clarify the details of what, exactly, Karpinski is onto.

    William John Lucas, distinguished professor of plant biology at UC-Davis and chair of the plant biology department, said an internal communication system would provide a wealth of information to different parts of the plant.

    "A particular tissue within a plant needs to be able to signal to the rest of the plant in terms of what are its conditions, what should you expect," he said. "If a young leaf is emerging out of a plant, it would be nice for that leaf to know about the conditions in which it is going to emerge."

    Lucas studies how plants pick up non-biological information, such as water and light, and how they transmit that information so the entire plant knows under which constraints it will grow. Plants can't move to a sunnier, wetter spot, so they need to make the most of their environment.

    Tapping into their "nervous system" would help scientists understand how they do that, Lucas said. That knowledge could lead to optimized food crops or hardier trees.

    "There are no neurons in plants, but there is a communication network that we don't fully understand," he said. "There are important implications for these kinds of studies."


    (ibid)

    So far, there isn't a whole lot on the web about this story; most of the early Google returns pertain to the BBC article. It's worth noting, just because, that this thread is number twenty-one in the result at the moment.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Gill, Victoria. "Plants 'can think and remember'". BBC News Online. July 14, 2010. BBC.co.uk. July 16, 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10598926

    Boyle, Rebecca. "Can Plants Think?" Popular Science. July 15, 2010. PopSci.com. July 16, 2010. http://www.popsci.com/science/artic...em-illuminating-how-plants-remember-and-react
     
  17. Randwolf Ignorance killed the cat Valued Senior Member

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    Similar subject, different plant...

    I've long been fascinated by the Quaking Aspen, classified as the "world's largest organism" - depending on the criteria used in the defining. I'd imagine many of you have encountered at least a passing reference to this 13 million pound stand located in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. Biologists have nick-named the structure "Pando".

    For those not familiar with this extremely interesting "creature", scientists postulate that certain forests are composed of a single, genetically identical (cloned) group of individual "stems", giving the illusion of a normal, diverse plot of woods. However, when examined at the cellular / genetic level, a different picture emerges...

    It would appear that all "individuals" composing a particular forest clone are part of the same organism - interconnected through an extremely complex, and common, root system, hence, "one plant". Furthermore, stimuli applied at one "edge" of the plot can cause reaction(s) acres away at another edge.

    Communication? Intelligence? Semantics will probably prevent consensus, but:
    (Discover Magazine, October 1993)

    Sensitivity to stimuli in one area and response in another - Hmmmm.... While "communication and intelligence" are debatable, the phenomenon is certainly interesting on such a massive scale, at least for a lowly plant. IMHO.
     
  18. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Sunflowers orient themsleves towards the Sun. This is not about information, just a reaction to stimulus.
     
  19. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    When you look at an object, do you see one, or two of it?

    You have two eyes, but you see one. Information is created from your sensory organs, that's the difference.
     
  20. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    It's just a cascade reaction.
    But then, so are nerve impulses.. Hm, ok.
     
  21. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    I see their point though, but it's not that the information is actively processed (as in that the sunflower as a whole decides which way to turn using the information about the direction of light). It's just direct reactions to stimuli or, in the sunflower case, reactions to the absence of certain stimuli.
     
  22. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Ah, you see, you've hit the nail on the head there. I think the 'decision' part is vital. It's only information if it is processed, and a decision is made based upon it.

    It's just a chain of events otherwise.
     
  23. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, my liege

    You'd better write the scientists and let them know what you've decreed about the definition of the word "information". I'm sure they will all respectfully obey.
     

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