The Potential of Plant Action Potentials

Nov 21, 2023

MINT Lab plant member Johnny Lee and lab director Paco Calvo recently published a paper on the interesting topic of bioelectricity and what it might mean for plant intelligence. Download it here!

Abstract

The mechanism underlying action potentials is routinely used to explicate the mechanistic model of explanation in the philosophy of science. However, characterisations of action potentials often fixate on neurons, mentioning plant cells in passing or ignoring them entirely. The plant sciences are also prone to neglecting non-neuronal action potentials and their role in plant biology. This oversight is significant because plant action potentials bear instructive similarities to those generated by neurons. This paper helps correct the imbalance in representations of action potentials by offering an overview of the mechanism for plant action potentials and highlighting their similarity to those in neurons. Furthermore, it affirms the role of plant action potentials in discovering the evolution and function of mechanisms of action potentials more broadly. We stress the potential of plants for producing generalisations about action potentials and the possible role of plants as model organisms.

Download the original pre-print here.

Authors

Johnny Lee

Johnny Lee

Research Fellow

Johnny is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Sussex, UK, and currently doing research at the MINT Lab.

Paco Calvo

Paco Calvo

Lab Director

Paco is the Director of the MINT Lab and a Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of Murcia, Spain.