
Biologists Discover Bacteria Communicate Like Neurons in the Brain - Oatseller
http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/biologists_discover_bacteria_communicate_like_neurons_in_the_brain
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pazimzadeh
There's obviously no blood-brain barrier for bacteria so I wonder how they
protect themselves from being affected by surrounding metabolites or hijacked
by competing organisms.

Here's the paper:
[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature15709.html)

I'd love a copy of the pdf - my school login's not working right now.

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w1ntermute
Just append 'sci-hub.org' to the domain name of a journal article URL to get
it for free: [http://www.nature.com.sci-
hub.org/nature/journal/vaop/ncurre...](http://www.nature.com.sci-
hub.org/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature15709.html)

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pazimzadeh
Amazing, thanks.

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selimthegrim
I actually went to undergrad with the lead author - he lived right down the
hall from me and was a chemical engineer. I wonder what incentivized him to
switch to biology?

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gfsn54nsf
Not sure if anyone in the know is reading and wants to comment on this, but
even if bacterial cells are exchanging messages, do they have connections back
to other specific cells or are they just broadcasting to the local soup? If
it's the latter, then it's definitely not going to function like neurons.

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florian-f
The latter. According to the article the 'like neurons' part just means that
they use ion channels to communicate. You could argue that the title of the
article is slightly misleading, but then again this is an article that talks
about 'charged ions'.

From the abstract of the paper
([http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/natu...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature15709.html))

"[...] ion channels conduct long-range electrical signals within bacterial
biofilm communities through spatially propagating waves of potassium. These
waves result from a positive feedback loop, in which a metabolic trigger
induces release of intracellular potassium, which in turn depolarizes
neighbouring cells. Propagating through the biofilm, this wave of
depolarization coordinates metabolic states among cells in the interior and
periphery of the biofilm."

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henryscala
I don't quite understand biology, but the similarities exist in objects of
different scales may be another proof to show that the universe is programmed
by programmer who reuses many functions.

