Speaker
Description
Across living systems, oscillations support coordination, information flow, and decision making, from neural rhythms to calcium signaling in single cells. The unicellular slime mold Physarum polycephalum is a striking example: despite lacking a nervous system, it exhibits decision-like behaviors including maze solving, network formation, and exploration–exploitation trade-offs. However, existing models focus either on large-scale network adaptation or local mechanochemical oscillations, leaving open how intracellular dynamics propagate through the organism to shape collective behavior.
We present a mechanistic model linking intracellular oscillations to network-scale dynamics by coupling self-sustained calcium oscillations to active pressure, fluid flow, and morphology. In one spatial dimension, reaction–diffusion dynamics drive pressure and tube radius changes, reproducing contraction waves and stimulus-induced symmetry breaking. We extend the model to two spatial dimensions using a phase-field formulation in which calcium-regulated tension drives cell deformation and migration.
The model reproduces key cell-level behaviors including exploration–exploitation trade-offs and efficient transport network formation. More broadly, the results show how feedback between oscillatory dynamics and evolving morphology constrains information flow in a living transport network, illustrating how network structure and nonlinear dynamics jointly generate complex behavior in biological systems.
