Plants 'can think and remember'

This was originally posted by CT Guy on the Organic Soil forum.

Stefano Mancusco: The Roots of Plant Intelligence

This is a 14-minute video at TED.com and is a presentation which includes videos explaining Mancusco's points. Well worth the time.

CC

Bwa ha haaa!

Pavlov's plants - coming soon. No shit, no revealing till it is done.

An understanding of feedback mechanisms both positive and negative will help explain delayed response in plant mechanisms. Many feedback loops continue to operate in the absense of the original stimulus as once a pathway is started it more often than not goes to completion.

I think Mancusco got too excited too early and needs to gather more statistical evidence and hard science - he oversells and underdelivers a fatal mistake in the cynical world of science. I'm hoping to prove the same thing myself. My idea is not that plants are elevated to sentient beings - that we are demoted to ordinary.

Most everything humans do is a kneejerk reaction to a stimulus. Genes show a predisposition for many 'personality' disorders these days. We are biological organisms responding to external inputs. So are plants. Our thinking is merely an emergent property of the central nervous system. An intricate dance of chemicals creating new synaptic associations. These get programmed in - like pavlovs dog - and we have 'learned' something new. Memory is the retention of these synaptic associations and memory loss is the loss of them.

The parasitoid wasp arrives as it detects a chemical gradient the plant emitted. The plant emits this as the saliva in the attacking caterpillar also has detectable chemicals. The saliva sets off a transcription factor which activates a gene which codes a protein which attracts a wasp. This is a genetically predetermined kneejerk reaction much like you pulling your hand back from a flame. Mechanical sensors relay chemicals which signal muscle fibres and you pull back. No thinking required by either party.

What I'm saying is we are not so amazing as we think we are, and plants are not so primitive either. If plants can think and remember thay also are capable of learning. I've yet to see some learned behaviour presented, rather, genetically predetermined morphological pathways - successful strategies for survival.

I think I can easily set up an experiment to determine a plants capability of learning. More will be revealed...

hi g0v

CC, thanks for that link

cool stuff mr F, lots of food for thought. keep us posted on the experiments!
you sound like you might be a fan of B F Skinner?

Not familiar with B F Skinner, but I have a few pages left in my friendship book if you hook us up with a link.

skinner was into animal behavior, including humans. the famous 'skinner box'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner

http://www.terapia-conductual-cogni.../B F Skinner - Science And Human Behavior.pdf

might be a good read if you are comparing plant and human behavior

VG

Thanks I'll check those out.

In "Evidence for Light Wavelength-Specific Photoelectrophysiological Signaling and Memory of Excess Light Episodes in Arabidopsis"... the systemic response is genetically controlled. From figure 3 - "SAA Is Dependent on Spectral Composition of Light and Is Associated with Wavelength-Specific Changes in PEPS That Is Regulated by APX2 Expression".

Both plants and animals sense -> relay -> respond. And genes are involved. I call this kneejerk reaction as we are preprogrammed to respond in such a manner. Localised cell gradients of signal molecules from sensory equipment affect localised conditions including systemic responses as they can influence both genetic transcription and hormonal production which can set off all manner of events. New events (like pollution) will be dealt with as best as the existing equipment (gene pool) allows for. Some mutations may then have an edge - this is not learning - it is genetic, albeit a genetic 'mutation'.

Is abberant behaviour in animals including humans a genetic mutation that in differing circumstances might find favour. Violence in cavemen would work better for them than in modern day man. (big brow for breaking coconuts on too!). Slowly the behaviour is weeded out of the gene pool through less sexual selection of the 'freaks' (unless you got a polygamy cult going on). When we get to the end of just how much of 'us' is actually kneejerk genetically preprogrammed response to environmental stimulus I fear our souls may shrink considerably.

Pavlov rang his bell and his dog salivated on cue. It learned that the bell was associated with food. If plants can learn they will be able to associate a new stimulus with a secondary event and respond accordingly much the same as pavlovs dog. Only, plants might be smarter than dogs.

Should I bribe the plants with treats, or frighten them with punishment!

I'm going to run with this one, I will keep you posted in future.

Being unsure if jokes are approved in this forum, I'm hesitant but;
Mr Fista, What happens if a dog wearing a bell pees on a plant?

"Mr Fista, What happens if a dog wearing a bell pees on a plant?"

Exactly! The plant gets fed and the dog tinkles. Eventually a plant will associate the tinkle of a bell wearing dog with a liquid supplement.

I am not denying plants having some form of sentience though. I just think the study overreaches. Massive amount of other research to back up each sentence in the study each little wee detail saying little and loads of long winded overly complicated explanations of what I thought was basic biology in between overly complex alliterations of acronyms...

It needed more pictures of hot chix.

the best thing about this thread is that I get to see hoosier's name up here with banned under it.

MrFista said:

........ If plants can learn they will be able to associate a new stimulus with a secondary event and respond accordingly much the same as pavlovs dog. Only, plants might be smarter than dogs.

Should I bribe the plants with treats, or frighten them with punishment!

I'm going to run with this one, I will keep you posted in future.

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could one argue that plants don't need to learn because they already know what they're doing?

greentrich said:

It is a good read though VG...thanks for posting. To me though, it seems these scientists are making more out of something than need be. The first part they talk about showing light on one leaf has direct results not only on that leaf, but the whole plant. Ok, isn't this basic biology? Cell communication? Doesn't every living thing on this planet have cells that communicate with each other?

Then in the "Thinking Plants" sections, they talk about . Maybe I'm missing something. Isn't this why I change from a blue MH to a red HPS? To provoke a particular response?

I think the most interesting thing is the immunity after having light, and the lack of before having light. But I do not think this denotes a "Thinking" organism over a conditioned, predetermined response that can be attributed to evolution and DNA.

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This. The plants that didn't utilize this information encoded in light would die off overtime resulting in plants that instinctually(sp? lol)/mechanically respond to aforementioned stimuli (quality & quantity of light). This is far from thinking and I realize that the author uses quotations and doesn't imply 'consciousness', but ya...I respectfully disagree in regards to sentience. The organism (plant in this case but I have the same opinion in regards to humans) receives input sensory data and then physical/chemical laws govern and produce a response. In case you are wondering, yes I am a determinist/fatalist but with a twist (wrong forum/site for this particular debate ^_^) It would be nice to see the actual study. No offense to BBC or physorg but I would rather do the interpreting myself =P Also the idea and findings are very intriguing and it would be nice to know some details.

Great post Verdant Keep em coming guys. This subsection is off to a good start! Have a good feelin' about this

so more root tips = cleverer plant ?
interesting. i always wanted to know where the thinking parts of a plant were.

next we'll be hearing about tormented souls of the deceased virgins inhabiting our nightmares...sentient beings can spontaneously communicate between each other with learned response and at times free will.
Only heard of one plant that can do that, but i'm sure there could be others. There are plants not yet discovered, next hot thing in the tabloids...talking plant discovered...oh wait Moses talked with a burning bush back in the day.
just sayin'

trichrider said:

.oh wait Moses talked with a burning bush back in the day.
just sayin'

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that was Acacia... DMT. Makes bushes talk to you and more. Good times.

talk is a loose term, senses are all connected. energy cannot really be fully understood by science, that is why embracing both eastern and western medicine is important imho. But the smell of mature herb is distinct to everyone I've ever met, I'll just say everyone period. I've seen little kids stopped in their tracks by a slight whiff. "mommy I smell smoke, and it's stinky!" I don't know what you call it, but the smoke alone told that kid something. The look on this innocent unexposed child's face was a combination of awe/fear/confusion/intrigue/desire.

statusquo said:

..... It would be nice to see the actual study......
Great post Verdant Keep em coming guys. This subsection is off to a good start! Have a good feelin' about this

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check the edit in the first post - spurr managed to find the original paper

Hi Verdant,

I thought you might be interested in this study, released a couple days ago. I realize this thread has turned to the discussion of what constitutes thinking and remembering and whether these can be attributed to plants. But regardless of that question, here we see the genetic basis for vernalization, which these researchers recognize as at least a simulation of memory.

Vernalization-Mediated Epigenetic Silencing by a Long Intronic Noncoding RNA
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2010/12/01/science.1197349

The PR:
Plants 'remember' winter to bloom in spring with help of special molecule

AUSTIN, Texas—The role a key molecule plays in a plant's ability to remember winter, and therefore bloom in the spring, has been identified by University of Texas at Austin scientists.

Many flowering plants bloom in bursts of color in spring after long periods of cold in the winter. The timing of blooming is critical to ensure pollination, and is important for crop production and for droves of people peeping at wildflowers.

One way for the plants to recognize the spring—and not just a warm spell during winter—is that they "remember" they've gone through a long enough period of cold.

"Plants can't literally remember, of course, because they don't have brains," says Sibum Sung, assistant professor in the Section of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology. "But they do have a cellular memory of winter, and our research provides details on how this process works."

The process is known as vernalization, whereby a plant becomes competent to flower after a period of cold. And though it is common for many plants adapted to temperate climates, including important crops like winter wheat, it has not been until the past decade or so that scientists have begun to understand the process's genetic and molecular underpinnings.

Sung and postdoctoral fellow Jae Bok Heo have now discovered that a long, non-coding RNA molecule, named COLDAIR, is required for plants to set up a memory of winter.

They published their work on the Arabidopsis plant in Science Express on Dec. 2.

This is how it works: In fall, a gene called FLC actively represses floral production. A random bloom in fall could be a waste of precious energy.

But after a plant has been exposed to 20 days of near-freezing temperatures, the scientists found that COLDAIR becomes active. It silences the FLC gene, a process that is completed after about 30 to 40 days of cold. With the FLC silenced as temperatures warm in the spring, other genes are activated that initiate blooming.

COLDAIR helps create a cellular memory for a plant, letting it know it has been through 30 or more days of cold.

But, how does the cold actually turn on COLDAIR?

"That is one of the next questions we have," says Sung. "How do plants literally sense the cold?"

Answering these kinds of basic questions could lead to crop improvements and will be important to grasp as climate changes alter the length of the winter season, with possible repercussions to vernalization in plants around the world.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-12/uota-pw120710.php

Forest20 said:

Let me clear this up a bit...If your neg towards your plants "they" do respond.. Positive = Good Ganja : Negative = Culled Ganja.... well you know where I stand

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I call bullshit on this. Have you ever seen that show Mythbusters?

They pretty thoroughly debunked this idea.


Plants can sense and respond to patterns in light and relay that information internally via cell membrane? I'll buy that. Plant can read your mind and pick up on your vibes? Nah. Not buying.

there is one indirect way that makes his statement true imo. when im feeling good i treat my plants better (asses their health and needs more accurately and more frequently). therefore my plants grow better when im feeling good.

nice work VG.. tagged..

Your not seriously going to use MYTHBUSTERS as your source are you? That show is terrible! They did a horrible job with the MOON LANDING HOAX! Skipped numerous factors and as i recollect they did the same thing with the plants! Offcourse they Think,Sense remember, We are all one, cmon people,NOT MY PEOPLE, havent you tripped on acid, shrroms, morning glories, dmt, 5meodmt, Salvia or for godsake a healthy dose of i dunno CANNABIS? Its all connected, the in is the out and the up is the down, there are no barriers, just perceptions of such..................