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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 7: Poster Session I

BP 7.22: Poster

Montag, 9. März 2026, 15:00–17:00, P5

Integration of environmental stimuli into the contraction dynamics of Physarum polycephalum — •Nora Deiringer and Karen Alim — School of Natural Sciences, Technical University of Munich, Garching, Germany

In many organisms, behaviour and decision-making are guided by environmental stimuli. However, the internal dynamics linking stimuli to behaviour are often complex and not fully understood. Additionally, an organism’s response to a stimulus can depend on its past stimulus history. In the unicellular, network-shaped organism Physarum polycephalum, migration results from the redistribution of cell mass driven by self-organised rhythmic tube contractions. In this study, we mimic environmental stimuli by exposing the cell’s contraction dynamics to patterns of harmful blue light. Through live recordings, we observe the imprints of these patterns in the cell’s dynamics and investigate how dynamic stimulus memories arise and decay. By varying the time span between two consecutive stimuli, we aim to elucidate how past stimulus history influences responses to future ones. Our findings provide insight into the mechanisms by which simple, non-neural organisms can organise adaptive behaviour.

Keywords: Adaptive behavior; Self-organization; Non-neural systems; Flow Networks