Propagation of electrical signals by fungi

Richard Mayne; Nic Roberts; Neil Phillips; Roshan Weerasekera; Andrew Adamatzky

doi:10.1016/j.biosystems.2023.104933

Propagation of electrical signals by fungi

Biosystems. 2023 Jul:229:104933. doi: 10.1016/j.biosystems.2023.104933. Epub 2023 May 29.

Authors

Richard Mayne¹, Nic Roberts², Neil Phillips³, Roshan Weerasekera⁴, Andrew Adamatzky³

Affiliations

¹ Unconventional Computing Laboratory, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK; Mayne Bio Analytics Ltd., Cinderford, UK. Electronic address: richard.mayne@uwe.ac.uk.
² Unconventional Computing Laboratory, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK; Advanced Machinery and Productivity Institute, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, UK.
³ Unconventional Computing Laboratory, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK.
⁴ School of Computer Science, Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Engineering Maths, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.

PMID: 37257553
DOI: 10.1016/j.biosystems.2023.104933

Abstract

Living fungal mycelium networks are proven to have properties of memristors, capacitors and various sensors. To further progress our designs in fungal electronics we need to evaluate how electrical signals can be propagated through mycelium networks. We investigate the ability of mycelium-bound composites to convey electrical signals, thereby enabling the transmission of frequency-modulated information. Mycelium networks were found to reliably transfer signals with a recoverable frequency comparable to the input, in the 100Hz to 10 000Hz frequency range. Mycelial adaptive responses, such as tissue repair, may result in fragile connections, however. While the mean amplitude of output signals was not reproducible among replicate experiments exposed to the same input frequency, the variance across groups was highly consistent. Our work is supported by NARX modelling through which an approximate transfer function was derived. These findings advance the state of the art of using mycelium-bound composites in analogue electronics and unconventional computing.

Keywords: Data transfer; Fungal materials; Harmonic information; Mycelium; NARX; Signalling.

MeSH terms

Fungi* / physiology
Mycelium*