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Biology of the Physarum polycephalum Plasmodium: Preliminaries for Unconventional Computing

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Advances in Physarum Machines

Part of the book series: Emergence, Complexity and Computation ((ECC,volume 21))

Abstract

Slime mould Physarum polycephalum is a macroscopic amoeba-like organism whose ability to ‘compute’ the solutions to complex problems ranging from logic to computational geometry has led to its extensive use as an unconventional computing substrate. In slime mould computing devices—‘Physarum machines’—data may be imparted to the organism via stimulation with chemical, optical, mechanical or electrical sources and outputs are generally behavioural, chemical or/and electrical. This chapter examines the biological basis of a slime mould’s ability to perceive and act upon input data and the mechanisms that contribute towards the output we interpret as computation. Furthermore, various research methods for slime mould cultivation, electrophysiological measurement and hybridisation with exogenous substances are discussed. The data presented here provides an essential foundation for the computer scientist wishing to fabricate their own Physarum machines.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For the reader’s interest, Brown is credited with the discovery which was presented in 1831, but he graciously acknowledged the earlier observations of Bauer [13].

  2. 2.

    It is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss the discrepancies between recent and historical results but we refer the reader to Refs. [7, 21, 22] for a deeper explanation.

  3. 3.

    Parenthetically, it is interesting to note that following the studies that pioneered slime mould—and indeed, human—electrophysiological measurements in the 1950s, researchers were surprised to note that the organism could not be electrically innervated in the same manner as neurons [58], although we now know this to result from P. polycephalum’s electrical oscillator being controlled principally by chemical factors.

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  1. Unconventional Computing Centre, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK

    Richard Mayne

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  1. Unconventional Computing Centre, University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom

    Andrew Adamatzky

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Mayne, R. (2016). Biology of the Physarum polycephalum Plasmodium: Preliminaries for Unconventional Computing. In: Adamatzky, A. (eds) Advances in Physarum Machines. Emergence, Complexity and Computation, vol 21. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26662-6_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26662-6_1

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