Cellular Learning

Imported from Google Keep on 2026-03-23.

Notes

single-cell learning is still contested, but it is too strong to say there is NO experimental evidence. there are at least suggestive experimental papers, including predictive behaviour in microbial genetic networks and recent work on spacing effects in non-neural human cells. https://chatgpt.com/s/t_69adfcba509c819189c272edfbd5d609

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastrulation Importance. Lewis Wolpert, pioneering developmental biologist in the field, has been credited for noting that “It is not birth, marriage, or death, but gastrulation which is truly the most important time in your life

3 kings are ur parents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Magi

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MJMwbjAAAAAJ&hl=en

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsaspora animals that can exhibit learning without memory?

talk style:

• big pictre with no details
• problems addressed as anecdotes.raising hand, croissant

iPhone OS/ animal OS analogy

• before phones, there were things that could do many functions of phone seperately - calculator, mp3 player, camera
• but evolved phone finally had everything
• before animals, primitive organisms could do many things individual - like memory/learning and immunity
• animals later packaged them all in one, like iphone packaged all of devices in one.

Learning in non-neural systems

• sam gershman review: https://elifesciences.org/articles/61907

• https://chatgpt.com/share/6928be49-5364-8002-b1f7-1df2a65cc4a5 gpt discussion Katz’s experiment of stirring and not seeing paraceium close to wire is an amazing example of how an unknown theory might come out of now-where and break the existing interpretation calling for more experiments:

• if stirring destroys the gradient, it also does “contigency degredation”

• molecular memory networks: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006291X25015219

Any biochemical network with feedback and multiple timescales can, in principle, implement learning rule

• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39689686/ cellular cognition - rajan and marshall

nice overview by chatgpt: https://chatgpt.com/s/t_69288b1f015081919234783a1da42e5a

• mechanistic model of cellular learning https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982224014301
• Current Biology paper relevant to cellular learning / single-cell behavioral adaptation https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2819%2931431-9
• Molecular circuits for associative learning in single-celled organisms https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/article/6/34/463/65470

2026-04-15 additions

• Quanta overview: What Can a Cell Remember?

  • https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-can-a-cell-remember-20250730/
  • Framing: asks whether single cells and non-neural cells can retain records of past experience in adaptive ways.

• Predictive behaviour in microbial genetic networks

  • Predictive Behavior Within Microbial Genetic Networks
  • https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1154456
  • Experimental evidence often cited for non-neural adaptive / predictive behaviour at the cellular level.

• Spaced repetition effect in kidney / non-neural human cells

  • The massed-spaced learning effect in non-neural human cells
  • https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-53922-x
  • Main claim: non-neural human cells show a spacing effect analogous to massed-vs-spaced learning phenomena usually discussed in neural systems.

2026-04-15 idea-level additions

• A mechanism for adaptive genome regulation in cancer

  • Framing: AP-1 transcription factors try different responses under stress; successful responses are stabilized via chromatin changes and passed to daughter cells.
  • Useful as an example of cells exploring, finding what works, storing it, and passing it on across generations under novel stress such as drug exposure.

• Associative conditioning in gene regulatory network models increases integrative causal emergence

  • Theoretical model only.
  • Framing: some gene regulatory network architectures can implement associative-learning-like dynamics.

• Inheritance of associative memories and acquired cellular changes in C. elegans

  • Experimental paper.
  • Important caveat: more about inheritance of associative memory / acquired changes in an organism than clean evidence for within-cell lifetime learning.

• Predictive behavior within microbial genetic networks

  • Additional interpretation note: maybe the stronger claim is not within-lifetime association, but that across generations mutations can exploit environmental correlations, survive, and thereby implement a form of learning across generations.

Key links

• Gastrulation — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastrulation
• Capsaspora — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsaspora
• Reconsidering the evidence for learning in single cells — https://elifesciences.org/articles/61907
• Cellular cognition — https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39689686/
• Mechanistic model of cellular learning — https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982224014301
• Molecular memory networks — https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006291X25015219