Towards the Idea of Molecular Brains.

ABSTRACT: How can single cells without nervous systems perform complex behaviours such as habituation, associative learning and decision making, which are considered the hallmark of animals with a brain? Are there molecular systems that underlie cognitive properties equivalent to those of the brain? This review follows the development of the idea of molecular brains from Darwin's "root brain hypothesis", through bacterial chemotaxis, to the recent discovery of neuron-like r-protein networks in the ribosome. By combining a structural biology view with a Bayesian brain approach, this review explores the evolutionary labyrinth of information processing systems across scales. Ribosomal protein networks open a window into what were probably the earliest signalling systems to emerge before the radiation o

SUBMITTER: Timsit Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8584932 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature