Relationship between intracellular period modulation and external environment change in Physarum plasmodium.

The relationship between intracellular period modulation and external environment change was investigated from the viewpoint of internal information coding in Physarum plasmodium. For the external conditions, concentration changes of attractant (galactose) and repellent (KCl) were used, and the internal responses were measured as the thickness oscillation of the plasmodium. (i) Period of the intracellular oscillation decreased when the concentration of attractant was increased and when the concentration of repellent was decreased. (ii) The period increased when the attractant was decreased and when the repellent was increased. (iii) The larger concentration change induced the larger period modulation. (iv) These responses were observed when the change of concentration was greater than a threshold value. From these results, it was clarified that the relative change in environmental condition is encoded on the relative period modulation in intracellular oscillation. This means that the period change does not directly represent the environment itself but represents the change of its condition. Thus, it is further suggested that the plasmodium estimates the environmental condition based on the relationship between the previous external condition and the present one.