claim

active

claim:the-neural-crest-acts-as-an-intelligently-migrating-collective-that-can-alter-individual-cell-behavior-to-achieve-target-morphology

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.

Source paper

extracted_from

Collective intelligence: A unifying concept for integrating biology across scales and substrates

(2024) · Patrick McMillen · Michael Levin

Neighborhood — ranked by edge-count

Findings (2)

finding

Grafted neural crest cell collectives maintain original Hox gene expression, while individual cells adopt neighbors' expression (Trainor and Krumlauf 2000)
supports
Collectives have increased positional memory and resist environmental induction, demonstrating expanded perceptual field in time dimension.
Mouse neural crest cells grafted into chicken embryos successfully form teeth (Mitsiadis et al. 2003)
supports
Neural crest collective navigates a foreign embryonic environment to achieve its morphogenetic goal.

Communities (3)

community

Bioelectric morphogenesis & anatomical intelligence
members_of
Levin-led research showing bioelectric signals encode and control anatomical goal states in living systems.
Distributed biological agency and morphogenetic learning
members_of
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.
Neural crest collective identity plasticity
members_of
Grafted neural crest collectives maintain Hox identity while isolated cells adopt host neighbors' expression.

Related by similarity (8)

cosine ≥ 0.65 · no typed edge

Entities in the same semantic neighborhood but without a typed relation to this one — candidates for new edges or unrecognized duplicates.

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)finding0.847
Collectives have extended temporal perceptual fields, maintaining positional memory that single cells lose.
Neural Crest Cellsconcept0.801
Cell population that migrates throughout the body as an intelligently coordinating collective, achieving target locations through problem-solving in embryonic space.
Neural Crestconcept0.800
A migratory embryonic cell population that exhibits collective intelligence, compensating for perturbations to achieve target morphology.
Target morphology shifts occur despite the fact that all of the individual cells have unaltered normal genomes, showing that competent subunits can be pushed to implement diverse organism-scale goals by physiological signals.claim0.785
Highlights the non-genetic control of large-scale anatomy.
Cells maintain internal representations of correct anatomical structure (target morphology) that causally constrain growth, regeneration, and repair.claim0.778
The collective intelligence of tissues is sophisticated enough to be trainable via reinforcement learning for specific morphological outcomes.hypothesis0.777
Ongoing test prediction: tissues can associate stimuli with rewards to modify anatomy.
The large-scale morphological goals of an organism override and harness the local competencies of individual cells to adaptively navigate morphospace.claim0.776
Describes top-down control in morphogenesis.
The collective often displays new behaviors or preferences that are not simply the sum of individual cell behaviors.claim0.776
Key property of collective intelligence: emergent behaviors at the group level.