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finding:planaria-adapt-to-barium-by-transcriptional-adjustment-of-a-handful-of-genes-restoring-head-morphology-despite-blocked-potassium-channels

Planaria adapt to barium by transcriptional adjustment of a handful of genes, restoring head morphology despite blocked potassium channels.

From Emmons-Bell et al. 2019; demonstrates physiological problem-solving in a novel stressor, no selection history.

Source paper

extracted_from

Darwin's agential materials: evolutionary implications of multiscale competency in developmental biology

(2023) · Levin, Michael

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Claims (1)

claim

Cells and cellular networks have problem-solving capacities that allow them to navigate entirely novel stressors (e.g., barium) without prior selection, implying a general competency beyond hardwired responses.
supports
Derived from the planarian barium adaptation finding.

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.

Planaria exposed to barium regenerate heads insensitive to barium via limited transcriptional changesfinding0.880
Despite no evolutionary exposure to barium, planaria solve the physiological stressor by regulating a small set of genes, demonstrating problem-solving in transcriptional space.
Genetically wild-type planaria can be induced to adopt head shapes of other species by brief bioelectric modulation, crossing 100-150 My evolutionary distance in days.finding0.830
From Sullivan et al. 2016 and Emmons-Bell et al. 2015; demonstrates that large morphospace distances can be crossed by physiological manipulation.
Brief bioelectric manipulation can stably convert wild-type planaria to a two-headed target morphology that persists through regeneration.finding0.812
From Durant et al. 2017; shows bioelectric pattern memory is reprogrammable without genomic change.
Manipulation of resting potential pattern in planaria stably alters target morphology (head number) despite wild-type genetics.finding0.810
Transient bioelectric perturbation with ion channel drugs/RNAi permanently alters the number of heads regenerated even in subsequent rounds without further treatment, demonstrating bioelectric pattern memory.
Transient bioelectrical modulation of body-wide pattern memory circuits in planaria can shift them from one-headed to persistent two-headed state, persisting through amputation rounds until reset with different manipulation.finding0.804
Experimental evidence that organism-scale goals can be rewritten through physiological signals without genetic modification; demonstrates bioelectricity as cognitive medium.
In planaria, the most depolarized region becomes the head; altering bioelectric pattern changes head location and number (Beane et al. 2011, Durant et al. 2017)finding0.803
The collective interprets relative voltage differences, not absolute values, to decide anterior identity.
Planaria retain conditioned responses after complete brain regenerationfinding0.796
Worms trained before decapitation re-acquire the memory after regenerating a new brain, showing transfer of information across tissues.
Planaria permanently generate two-headed forms despite completely wild-type genetic sequence after bioelectric pattern rewriting.finding0.792
Demonstrates that anatomical outcomes can be reprogrammed at the bioelectric level independently of DNA, inverting the software/hardware metaphor