Language of fungi derived from their electrical spiking activity

Abstract

Fungi exhibit oscillations of extracellular electrical potential recorded via differential electrodes inserted into a substrate colonized by mycelium or directly into sporocarps. We analysed electrical activity of ghost fungi ( Omphalotus nidiformis ), Enoki fungi ( Flammulina velutipes ), split gill fungi ( Schizophyllum commune ) and caterpillar fungi ( Cordyceps militaris ). The spiking characteristics are species specific: a spike duration varies from 1 to 21 h and an amplitude from 0.03 to 2.1 mV. We found that spikes are often clustered into trains. Assuming that spikes of electrical activity are used by fungi to communicate and process information in mycelium networks, we group spikes into words and provide a linguistic and information complexity analysis of the fungal spiking activity. We demonstrate that distributions of fungal word lengths match that of human languages. We also construct algorithmic and Liz-Zempel complexity hierarchies of fungal sentences and show that species S. commune generate the most complex sentences.

Electrical spiking of psilocybin fungi

“…Thereby, we recorded the extracellular electrical potential in mushrooms and mycelium-colonised sub-strates as indicators of the fungi intrinsic activity. Action potential-like spikes of electrical potential have been observed using intra-cellular recording of mycelium of Neurospora crassa [20] and further confirmed in intra-cellular recordings of action potential in hyphae of Pleurotus ostreatus and Armillaria gallica [21] and in extra-cellular recordings of basidiocarps of and substrates colonised by mycelium of P. ostreatus [22], Ganoderma resinaceum [23], and Omphalotus nidiformis, Flammulina velutipes, Schizophyllum commune and Cordyceps militaris [24]. While the exact nature of the travelling spikes remains uncertain we can speculate, by drawing analogies with oscillations of electrical potential of slime mould Physarum poly-cephalum [25, 26, 27, 28], that the spikes in fungi are triggered by calcium waves, reversing of cytoplasmic flow, and translocation of nutrients and metabolites.…”

Building Bridges: Mycelium Mediated Plant-Plant Electrophysiological Communication

“…Similar to the scientists aiming to create a standard model for plant signals, some researchers are going so far as to compare the electric responses of fungi to language, where different patterns of electric potential spikes represent different words. The fungi studied exhibited lexicons of up to 50 words, but the core lexicon which appeared most frequently did not exceed 15-20 words [18]. The researchers found that the distribution of the length of the spike in the spike trains corresponded to the distribution of word lengths of human languages.…”

Electrical spiking of psilocybin fungi

“…Thereby, we recorded the extracellular electrical potential in mushrooms and mycelium-colonized substrates as indicators of the fungi intrinsic activity. Action potential-like spikes of electrical potential have been observed using intra-cellular recording of mycelium of Neurospora crassa [ 20 ] and further confirmed in intra-cellular recordings of action potential in hyphae of Pleurotus ostreatus and Armillaria gallica [ 21 ] and in extra-cellular recordings of basidiocarps of and substrates colonized by mycelium of P. ostreatus [ 22 ], Ganoderma resinaceum [ 23 ], and Omphalotus nidiformis, Flammulina velutipes, Schizophyllum commune

Figure 1. Experimental setup.

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