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1.2.2
Bacterial Intelligence and Phosphoneural Networks
Bacteria respond to many signals in their environment with adaptive re-
sponses designed to improve fitness (Hellingwerf 2005). The basic trans-
duction mechanism for these signals involves phosphorylation of spe-
cific proteins with conserved regions on histidine and aspartate residues
(Hellingwerf 2005) and other less common mechanisms in bacteria such
as serine/threonine phosphorylation and quorum sensing systems (Park
et al. 2003a,b). Very early on, analogies were drawn between the con-
nections that phosphorylation enables between bacterial proteins and the
connections between neurone dendrites in higher animal brains. This led
to their description as a phosphoneural network (Hellingwerf et al. 1995).
The properties of these networks include signal amplification, associa-
tive responses (cross talk) and memory effects. Subsequent investigation
indicated learning (Hoffer et al. 2001) and the realization that these sim-
plenetworksprovidetheindividualbacterialcellwithinformeddecisions
(Bijlsma and Groisman 2003) in a rudimentary form of intelligence.
“This simplest of animals (bacteria) exhibits a prototypical centralized
intelligence system that has the same essential design characteristics and
problem solving logic as is evident in all animal intelligence systems in-
cluding humans” (La Cerra 2003). “Some of the most fundamental features
of brains such as sensory integration, memory, decision making and the
control of behaviour can all be found in these simple organisms” (Allmann
1999).
Hellingwerf (2005) considers the crucial aspect of human intelligence is
associative memory, i.e. to identify non-identical systems as being related.
In bacterial networks this is simply cross talk after learning.
But La Cerra and Bingham (1998) came to a different conclusion of the
basic element of bacterial intelligence from considerations of chemotaxis.
“The
sine qua non
of behavioral intelligence systems is the capacity to
predict the future; to model likely behavioral outcomes in the service of in-
clusive fitness.” This model is retained in bacteria for only several seconds,
the time taken for perception to alter the behaviour of the chemotactic
rotor.
1.2.3
Observations of Eucaryote Single Cell Intelligence
Grasse (1977) has described remarkable non-heritable behaviour in single-
celled amoebae (Arcella and Chaos). Arcella, for example, uses several cun-
ning methods to return to its normal position after accidental inversion, to
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