Distributed biological agency and morphogenetic learning

Non-neural and neural tissues exhibit autonomous learning and goal-directed behavior in closed-loop systems, from cultured neurons to bioelectric collectives, challenging centralized brain-centric models of cognition.

14 members. Each node is clickable.

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The papers/notes whose extracted claims & findings make up this cluster.

Bridges (4)

Other communities that share members with this one — cross-cutting threads or papers that sit at the seam between two themes.

Bioelectric morphogenesis & anatomical intelligence14 shared
Substrate-agnostic behavioral inference of cognition5 shared
Neural crest collective identity plasticity4 shared
Active inference & free energy minimization1 shared

Findings (10)

Animal brains learn to control robotic bodies
Cultured neural tissue controls virtual animat behavior via learned associationsDemonstrates neural culture can learn relationships between its activity and sensory feedback without evolutionary training.
Gastruloids derived from embryonic stem cells arrive at a segmented target morphology despite very different ontogenic history (Veenvliet et al. 2020, van den Brink et al. 2020)Shows that the segmentation goal can be reached via alternative developmental pathways, fitting James' definition of intelligence.
Grafted neural crest cell collectives maintain original Hox gene expression, while individual cells adopt neighbors' expression (Trainor and Krumlauf 2000)Collectives have increased positional memory and resist environmental induction, demonstrating expanded perceptual field in time dimension.
Individual neural crest or rhombomere cells lose memory of past inductive cues and adopt neighbors' expression; grafted collectives maintain original identity (Trainor and Krumlauf 2000)Collectives have extended temporal perceptual fields, maintaining positional memory that single cells lose.
MEART created drawings with neural control and showed learning when training stimulus was updated.From Bakkum et al. (2007b), demonstrates closed-loop learning in a hybrot.
Mouse neural crest cells grafted into chicken embryos successfully form teeth (Mitsiadis et al. 2003)Neural crest collective navigates a foreign embryonic environment to achieve its morphogenetic goal.
Neural cultures learn to control virtual and robotic bodies in closed-loop systems
Non-neural morphogenetic agents satisfy most sentience criteria via electrically active cells rather than neuronsEmpirical basis for expanding sentience frameworks; shows Crump criteria adaptable beyond traditional neurocentric definitions.
Temporary introduction of breaks in the embryonic blastoderm results in twins, triplets, etc. (Lutz 1949)Demonstrates that the blastoderm is a dynamical excitable medium where multiple coherent embryos can self-organize, not fixed by genetics.

Claims (4)

Neuronal responses can be described as gradient descent on variational free energy.Central claim: gradient descent on free energy is a valid process-level description of neural activity.
The 'muscle' itself—peripheral biological tissue—can learn and make decisions autonomously, not just centralized control units like the brainTheoretical claim that physical learning reveals non-modular information processing; contrasts traditional view of separated control (brain) from controlled elements (muscle)
The neural crest acts as an intelligently migrating collective that can alter individual cell behavior to achieve target morphology.Specific claim illustrating collective intelligence in a well-studied embryonic system.
The number of embryos emerging from an embryonic blastoderm is not genetically fixed but determined in real-time by physiological processes.Highlights dynamical determination of individuality through collective autopoiesis.