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Articles

Construction of living cellular automata using the Physarum plasmodium

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Pages 292-304 | Received 11 Oct 2014, Accepted 27 Nov 2014, Published online: 24 Feb 2015
 

Abstract

The plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum is a unicellular and multinuclear giant amoeba that has an amorphous cell body. To clearly observe how the plasmodium makes decisions in its motile and exploratory behaviours, we developed a new experimental system to pseudo-discretize the motility of the organism. In our experimental space that has agar surfaces arranged in a two-dimensional lattice, the continuous and omnidirectional movement of the plasmodium was limited to the stepwise one, and the direction of the locomotion was also limited to four neighbours. In such an experimental system, a cellular automata-like system was constructed using the living cell. We further analysed the exploratory behaviours of the plasmodium by duplicating the experimental results in the simulation models of cellular automata. As a result, it was revealed that the behaviours of the plasmodium are not reproduced by only local state transition rules; and for the reproduction, a kind of historical rule setting is needed.

Additional information

Funding

This study was partly supported by Grant-in Aid for Scientific Research (B) [grant number 25280091], from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).

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