On Boolean gates in fungal colony

Abstract

A fungal colony maintains its integrity via flow of cytoplasm along mycelium network. This flow, together with possible coordination of mycelium tips propagation, is controlled by calcium waves and associated waves of electrical potential changes. We propose that these excitation waves can be employed to implement a computation in the mycelium networks. We use FitzHugh-Nagumo model to imitate propagation of excitation in a single colony of Aspergillus niger. Boolean values are encoded by spikes of extracellular potential. We represent binary inputs by electrical impulses on a pair of selected electrodes and we record responses of the colony from sixteen electrodes. We derive sets of two-inputs-on-output logical gates implementable the fungal colony and analyse distributions of the gates.

Computational universality of fungal sandpile automata

“…A significance of the results presented for future implementations of fungal automata with living fungal colonies in experimental laboratory conditions is the following: in our previous research, see details in [4], we used FitzHugh-Nagumo model to imitate propagation of excitation on the mycelium network of a single colony of Aspergillus niger. Boolean values are encoded by spikes of extracellular potential.…”

“…We represented binary inputs by electrical impulses on a pair of selected electrodes and we record responses of the colony from sixteen electrodes. We derived sets of two-inputs-on-output logical gates implementable the fungal colony and analyse distributions of the gates [4]. Indeed, there were combination of functionally complete sets of gates, thus computing with travelling spikes is universal.…”

“…Indeed, there were combination of functionally complete sets of gates, thus computing with travelling spikes is universal. However, in [4], we made a range of assumptions about origins, mechanisms of propagation and interactions of impulses of electrical activity. If the spikes of electrical potential do not actually propagate along the mycelium the model might be incorrect.…”

“…On studying electrical responses of fungi to stimulation [1] we proposed design and experimental implementation of fungal computers [2]. Further numerical experiments demonstrated that it is possible to compute Boolean functions with spikes of electrical activity propagating on mycelium networks [4]. At this early stage of developing a fungal computer architecture we need to establish a strong formal background reflecting several alternative ways of computing with fungi.…”

Exploring the symbol processing ‘time interval’ parametric constraint in a Belousov–Zhabotinsky operated chemical Turing machine

“…3,4 Biology has inspired some of the man-made approaches to computation. Biochemical computing systems have been developed using many biological constructs, including enzymes, 5,6 fungal colonies, 7 DNA, 8,9 and vesicles. 10 Despite the large precedence for bio-inspired molecular computation, comparatively little work has been published on non-biological pure-chemical molecular computation.…”