CONEDAP · Collective neuron dynamics in animals and plants
FP6 — Marie Curie Actions (Human Resources and Mobility)
- Duration
- 2007-02-01 → 2009-01-31
- EU contribution
- €136,375
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- EIF
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Results in brief
Final Activity Report Summary - CONEDAP (Collective neuron dynamics in animals and plants.)
Electrically excitable cells are present in many multicellular organisms, especially in brains of animals, but they are present also in lower animals lacking central nervous system as sponges or in animals having excitable epithelia, which can conduct signals (neuroid conduction) in addition to neurons. Conducted electrical events serve for translation of environmental parameters and cues, obtained via sensory systems, into biological information and processes. In plants, most cells are electrically excitable and active, releasing and propagating action potentials (APs), which regulate and control such central physiological processes as photosynthesis and respiration. Moreover, electrical signals are believed to play a central role in intercellular and intracellular communication at all levels of evolution from algae, to bryophytes and higher plants. During the realisation of the CONEDAP project the main objective concerned the study of the electrical network dynamics in plant cells. A 60-channels multi-electrode array (MEA) has been applied to study spatiotemporal characteristics of the electrical network activity of the root apex. Both, intense spontaneous electrical activities as well as stimulation-elicited bursts of locally propagating action potentials have been observed. Propagation of APs indicated the existence of excitable travelling waves in plants, similar to those observed in animal electrogenic tissues. Obtained data revealed synchronous electric activities of root cells, which emerge within specific root apex region. This dynamic electrochemical activity of root apex cells has been proposed to continuously integrate internal and external signalling for developmental adaptations in a changing environment. The results of this study have been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The aim of the proposal is to model the coupled neuron behaviour within a single cortical module and code the collective activity of previous modules through suitable indicators. This would be a contribution toward a dynamically rooted Theoretical Neuroscience, complementary to other approaches.The collaboration of scientists from different fields as Physics, Biology, Neuroscience and Psychology, will contribute to interdisciplinary aspects of the proposed project, being however, focused on the common problem: the understanding of the brain functioning.According to the above description of the problem we establish the following research lines: study of dynamics of homoclinic chaos (HC) and synchronization of HC arrays, exploring higher cognitive functions as decision making and neural computation, study of time limited psychophysical tasks, study of neurobiology of plants and applications to development of bio-robots inspired by plants (plantoid).The research method mainly will consist on numerical work, carried both on differential equations and coupled map lattices. A new line of analog programmable chips is being prepared to assist the numerics with fast preliminary results.Furthermore a two-way interaction with experimentalists is planned in order to formulate appropriate models with meaningful parameter values and vice-versa what suggest laboratory implementations of theoretical conjectures.The objectives of the proposal are the following: selection of the optimal neuron dynamical model, compare neuron array coupling and synchronization with pattern formation in reaction-diffusion media, start exploring quantum implications and corresponding parallelism in brain computation, define collective indicators and find the psycho-physical counterpart, apply the above strategy to plant neurons, to explore the yet unknown facts related to plant neuron coupling and coding.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- CNR - ISTITUTO NAZIONALE DI OTTICA APPLICATA · FLORENCECoordinatorCity levelItaly
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union