Evidence of conditioned behavior in amoebae

Ildefonso M. De la Fuente (), Carlos Bringas, Iker Malaina, María Fedetz, Jose Carrasco-Pujante, Miguel Morales, Shira Knafo, Luis Martínez, Alberto Pérez-Samartín, José I. López, Gorka Pérez-Yarza and María Dolores Boyano
Additional contact information
Ildefonso M. De la Fuente: Espinardo University Campus
Carlos Bringas: University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU
Iker Malaina: University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU
María Fedetz: Institute of Parasitology and Biomedicine “López-Neyra”, CSIC
Jose Carrasco-Pujante: University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU
Miguel Morales: University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)
Shira Knafo: University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)
Luis Martínez: University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU
Alberto Pérez-Samartín: University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU
José I. López: University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)
Gorka Pérez-Yarza: University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU
María Dolores Boyano: University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Associative memory is the main type of learning by which complex organisms endowed with evolved nervous systems respond efficiently to certain environmental stimuli. It has been found in different multicellular species, from cephalopods to humans, but never in individual cells. Here we describe a motility pattern consistent with associative conditioned behavior in the microorganism Amoeba proteus. We use a controlled direct-current electric field as the conditioned stimulus, and a specific chemotactic peptide as the unconditioned stimulus. The amoebae are capable of linking two independent past events, generating persistent locomotion movements that can prevail for 44 min on average. We confirm a similar behavior in a related species, Metamoeba leningradensis. Thus, our results indicate that unicellular organisms can modify their behavior during migration by associative conditioning.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11677-w Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-11677-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11677-w

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().