Training Bacteria

A few years ago, Japanese researchers claimed that slime mould, a one cell organism that bans together to form a slimy slug when conditions are right, can be trained to solve a maze puzzle for a food reward. Now comes a recent story that bacteria can be “trained” to deliver drugs. It seems that learning starts at the cellular level, and is basic to most living organisms. “As with Pavlov’s dog and all other examples of associative learning, the bacteria in the model learn to build stronger associations between the two stimuli the more they occur together,” says author Michael Day. This is an example of “Hebbian learning” (named after Canadian neuropsychologist Donald Hebb). According to Hebb, “the more often the two stimuli are applied at the same time, the greater the link or “synaptic weight” between them.” (GW)

 Teaching Bacteria to Behave | Technology Review | Michael Day | 1 October 2008

Tagged as: Bacteria, Hebb, learning