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Current reinforcement model reproduces center‐in‐center vein trajectory of Physarum polycephalum
Author(s) -
Akita Dai,
Schenz Daniel,
Kuroda Shigeru,
Sato Katsuhiko,
Ueda Keiichi,
Nakagaki Toshiyuki
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
development, growth and differentiation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.864
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1440-169X
pISSN - 0012-1592
DOI - 10.1111/dgd.12384
Subject(s) - center (category theory) , physarum polycephalum , trajectory , guiding center , current (fluid) , computer science , physics , engineering , biology , electrical engineering , quantum mechanics , chemistry , crystallography , microbiology and biotechnology , plasma
Vein networks span the whole body of the amoeboid organism in the plasmodial slime mould Physarum polycephalum , and the network topology is rearranged within an hour in response to spatio‐temporal variations of the environment. It has been reported that this tube morphogenesis is capable of solving mazes, and a mathematical model, named the ‘current reinforcement rule’, was proposed based on the adaptability of the veins. Although it is known that this model works well for reproducing some key characters of the organism's maze‐solving behaviour, one important issue is still open: In the real organism, the thick veins tend to trace the shortest possible route by cutting the corners at the turn of corridors, following a center‐in‐center trajectory, but it has not yet been examined whether this feature also appears in the mathematical model, using corridors of finite width. In this report, we confirm that the mathematical model reproduces the center‐in‐center trajectory of veins around corners observed in the maze‐solving experiment.