Electrome & Cognition Modes in Plants: A Transdisciplinary Approach to the Eco-Sensitiveness of the World

Abstract

Recent studies on plant-environment and plant-human relationships reveal the need to reassess thescales of perception, sensitiveness and cognition of living systems. The complexity of plant's emergingbehaviors in interaction with the environment is supported by the signature of the electrome and theplant sensorium, a strong argument to establish the singularity of the living and weights its consequencesin evolutionary, ecological or socioeconomic terms. This paper highlights the cognitive value of access tothe experience of plants and its fundamentally mesological or ecoplastic nature, that is to say in directconnection with a singular milieu. This dynamic coupling makes it possible to explain the co-construction ofan intelligible and sensible world without the use of a brain, principle that reframes the concept of intelligentbehavior while revealing both the frontiers in cognition and the strong transdisciplinary challenges of anacute awareness of the man's fragility as of the planetary ecosystem at the era of the Antropocene.

The Electrome of a Parasitic Plant in a Putative State of Attention Increases the Energy of Low Band Frequency Waves: A Comparative Study with Neural Systems

“…C. racemosa and many other plants have predominantly low frequency ranges related to energy expenditure that might increase during operational choice and attention facing external cues [ 9 ]. This phenomenon is remarkable and may have similarities with information processing at the neural scale [ 24 , 25 , 45 , 73 , 74 ].…”

“…Although it would be important to further investigate the links between the cyclic and low-frequency activities in C. racemosa and many other plants, our results indicated that, whatever the cognitive value we attribute to the perceptual process involved (such as selective attention), the operating mode was, in the particular case of the dodder: (1) hostselective (operational choice), (2) energy-intensive (in proportion to the frequencies detected), (3) associated with a possible state of attention on transdisciplinary grounds [9], and (4) of a mesological order (Umwelt of plants, a direct link with their singular milieu [44,45]). This is in line with other studies on electrome complexity [26,40,43], including some that demonstrated specific electromic signatures in pathogen-infected plants [28,46], bioelectric patterns of oscillations recorded in loco in Miconia sp.…”

Systemic Signals Induced by Single and Combined Abiotic Stimuli in Common Bean Plants

“…However, quite often, mixed electrical potential waves are recorded, for instance, as a result of overlapping APs and VPs (among other voltage variations), creating a complex bioelectrical information network in which several electrical signals may be superposed [ 4 ]. As a result, the term “electrome” was coined to designate the totality of ionic currents of any living entity, evoked naturally or spontaneously, recorded by non-polarized Ag/AgCl electrodes [ 11 ], and more recently, the term “plant electrome” was employed to refer to the emergent complexity of bioelectrical activity in plants [ 12 , 13 ].…”

“…Recent studies analyzing plant electrome [ 1 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ] revealed its potential as a tool for early stress diagnosis in plants since the electrome exhibits specific patterns of responses that function as a classifiable electrical signature by standard time series analysis and machine learning techniques [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ].…”