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Physical Ethology of Unicellular Organisms

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Brain Evolution by Design

Part of the book series: Diversity and Commonality in Animals ((DCA))

Abstract

In this chapter, some behaviours of unicellular organisms that appear to be smart or intelligent are reported. Two topics are the focus from two major groups of eukaryotic unicellular organisms, amoebae and ciliates: (1) anticipatory capacity of periodic environmental events in an amoeba and (2) environment-induced development of a new type of behaviour in a ciliate. A mechanism of these behaviours is discussed, based on a mechanical equation of motion. Ethology (the science of animal behaviour) of unicellular organisms is recently being studied from a physical point of view. We propose to call this kind of study {physical ethology}. Physical ethology may give us some hints about the origin of primitive intelligence.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The expression of the functions for the voltage-dependent reaction rates (α, β) were determined by reference to the measurement data available from (Hirano et al. 2005) as follows: αm (V) = 0.39(46.40 − V)/(exp(0.039(46.40 − V)) − 1), β m (V) = 0.65 exp(−V/15), α h (V) = 0.05 exp(−V/50), β h (V) = 1.0(exp(0.032(V − 39.29)) + 1), α n (V) = 0.038(58.58 − V)/(exp((58.58 − V)/8.17) − 1), β n (V) = 0.10 exp(−V/68). However the α h was determined ad hoc, because its data were not available. The constant values in this paper were set as follows (Naitoh 1990; Hirano et al. 2005). E r  = −30, E Ca  = +116, E K  = −41, E L  = −25,V • = E • − E r . \( {\overline{g}}_{Ca}=0.67 \), \( {\overline{g}}_{Ca}=1.34 \), \( {\overline{g}}_L:=\left({g}_{Ca}^{\infty }(0){V}_{Ca}+{g}_K^{\infty }(0){V}_K\right)/{V}_L \), C m  = 1.0. Ca K

  2. 2.

    In the simulation, the δp assumed to be proportional to ns(n − ns)/n2 so that ns grows and saturates in a sigmoidal manner, where n is the total number of the Ca2+ channels and ns is the number of the modified channels. The update equation for p = ns/n is given as p(t) = (p(ti) + kpp(ti)(1 − p(ti))) exp(−(t − ti)/τ p) + p ε , where ti is the most recent collision time, 0 < kp ≤ 1 is a growth rate, τ p is a relaxation time constant, and p ε is a sufficiently small positive constant.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by JSPS KAKENHI grant no. 26310202, and by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Area ‘Fluctuation and Structure’ (no. 25103006) and ‘Cross talk between moving cells and microenvironment’ (no. 25111726) from Mext Japan, and by Strategic Japanese-Swedish Research Cooperative Program, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physical Ethology Laboratory, Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 001-0020, Japan

    Shigeru Kuroda & Toshiyuki Nakagaki

  2. Faculty of Complex and Intelligent Systems, Future University Hakodate, Hakodate, Japan

    Seiji Takagi

  3. Department of Cellular Physiology, Institute of Nephrology, Niigata University, Niigata, Japan

    Tetsu Saigusa

Authors
  1. Shigeru Kuroda
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  2. Seiji Takagi
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  3. Tetsu Saigusa
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  4. Toshiyuki Nakagaki
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shigeru Kuroda .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Naples, Italy

    Shuichi Shigeno

  2. Ehime University, Matsuyama, Japan

    Yasunori Murakami

  3. Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan

    Tadashi Nomura

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Kuroda, S., Takagi, S., Saigusa, T., Nakagaki, T. (2017). Physical Ethology of Unicellular Organisms. In: Shigeno, S., Murakami, Y., Nomura, T. (eds) Brain Evolution by Design. Diversity and Commonality in Animals. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-56469-0_1

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