A recent study revealed that mushrooms could potentially communicate with each other via electrical signals. (Image Credit: Hans Veth/Unsplash)
Mushrooms may possess complex communication capabilities. A recent study conducted by Andrew Adamatzky, a computer scientist at the University of England, revealed that fungi’s electrical signals could be interpreted as a human language due to their similarities. He also suggests that the mushroom’s signal groups, which resemble a vocabulary, may contain up to 50 words.
Typically, fungi rely on hyphae, which refer to long, branching, filamentous tendrils, to communicate with each other. Previous research proves that more electrical impulses pass through the hyphae when they find new food sources, meaning that fungi could communicate with each other through this method.
Adamatzky observed four mushroom types: enoki, split gill, ghost, and caterpillar fungi, to determine if these signals can be interpreted as human language. So he attached eight pairs of microelectrodes on substrates that the hyphae inhabited to measure their electrical signals. He tracked the time between spikes along with frequency and amplitude. Afterward, he ran algorithms to compare the fungi’s electrical activity to human word length, syntax, and language complexity.
Adamatzky attached microelectrodes to each fungus to record electrical activity. (Image Credit: Andrew Adamatzky/Royal Society Open Science)
The study revealed that the spikes would often cluster into trains of activity. These represented varying language complexities, with an average of 15-20 words and a maximum of 50. The fungi word length distribution was very identical to human languages. Compared to other mushroom types, split gills formed the most complex sentences. However, Adamatzky didn’t provide any mushroom to human language translations, which could be explored in the future.
Not many scientists are convinced that these electrical spikes resemble mushroom communication since pulses have previously been recorded while fungi search for food. That could present a possible explanation for the electrical spikes.
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