TY - JOUR
T1 - A ciliate memorizes the geometry of a swimming arena
AU - Kunita, Itsuki
AU - Yamaguchi, Tatsuya
AU - Tero, Atsushi
AU - Akiyama, Masakazu
AU - Kuroda, Shigeru
AU - Nakagaki, Toshiyuki
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by JSPS KAKENHI grant nos. 25730178 (I.K.), 24120709 (A.T.), 20300105 (T.N.) and 26310202 (T.N.), by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Area from MEXT (25111726 (T.N.), 25103006 (T. N.)) and by the Strategic Japanese-Swedish Research Cooperative Program, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) (T.N.)
PY - 2016/5/1
Y1 - 2016/5/1
N2 - Previous studies on adaptive behaviour in single-celled organisms have given hints to the origin of their memorizing capacity. Here we report evidence that a protozoan ciliate Tetrahymena has the capacity to learn the shape and size of its swimming space. Cells confined in a small water droplet for a short period were found to recapitulate circular swimming trajectories upon release. The diameter of the circular trajectories and their duration reflected the size of the droplet and the period of confinement. We suggest a possible mechanism for this adaptive behaviour based on a Ca2' channel. In our model, repeated collisions with the walls of a confining droplet result in a slow rise in intracellular calcium that leads to a long-term increase in the reversal frequency of the ciliary beat.
AB - Previous studies on adaptive behaviour in single-celled organisms have given hints to the origin of their memorizing capacity. Here we report evidence that a protozoan ciliate Tetrahymena has the capacity to learn the shape and size of its swimming space. Cells confined in a small water droplet for a short period were found to recapitulate circular swimming trajectories upon release. The diameter of the circular trajectories and their duration reflected the size of the droplet and the period of confinement. We suggest a possible mechanism for this adaptive behaviour based on a Ca2' channel. In our model, repeated collisions with the walls of a confining droplet result in a slow rise in intracellular calcium that leads to a long-term increase in the reversal frequency of the ciliary beat.
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U2 - 10.1098/rsif.2016.0155
DO - 10.1098/rsif.2016.0155
M3 - Article
C2 - 27226383
AN - SCOPUS:84973324994
VL - 13
JO - Journal of the Royal Society Interface
JF - Journal of the Royal Society Interface
SN - 1742-5689
IS - 118
M1 - 20160155
ER -