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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 100 » Issue 1
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 018101 (2008) [4 pages]

Amoebae Anticipate Periodic Events

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Tetsu Saigusa
Graduate School of Engineering, Hokkaido University, N13 W8, Sapporo 060-8628, Japan

Atsushi Tero* and Toshiyuki Nakagaki†
Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0812, Japan

Yoshiki Kuramoto
Department of Nonlinear Science, ATR Wave Engineering Laboratories, 2-2-2 Hikaridai, Seika-Cho, Soraku-gun, Kyoto 619-0288, Japan

Received 2 July 2007; published 3 January 2008

When plasmodia of the true slime mold Physarum were exposed to unfavorable conditions presented as three consecutive pulses at constant intervals, they reduced their locomotive speed in response to each episode. When the plasmodia were subsequently subjected to favorable conditions, they spontaneously reduced their locomotive speed at the time when the next unfavorable episode would have occurred. This implied the anticipation of impending environmental change. We explored the mechanisms underlying these types of behavior from a dynamical systems perspective.

© 2008 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.018101
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.018101
PACS:
87.17.Aa, 87.18.Hf, 87.23.Kg

*Also at PRESTO, JST, 4-1-8 Honcho Kawaguchi, Saitama, Japan.

†Also at Creative Research Initiative SOUSEI, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 001-0821, Japan.

nakagaki@es.hokudai.ac.jp

 
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