Study
On spiking behaviour of oyster fungi Pleurotus djamor
Adamatzky, A.
Scientific Reports, 2018
Pairs of electrodes were inserted into oyster-mushroom fruiting bodies and the potential difference between them logged continuously for hours to days, with the resulting traces searched for spikes and the intervals between them measured.
- Studied in
- Pleurotus djamor
- Sample size
- fruiting bodies recorded with differential electrode pairs
Two distinct populations of spike appeared in the same recordings — a slow kind lasting several minutes and a fast kind lasting under a minute — arriving in irregular trains rather than at a steady rate.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Fungal fruiting bodies show at least two characteristic modes of electrical activity, which the author proposes may relate to different physiological processes.
How NatureHQ reads it
The value of this one is that it is a description rather than an interpretation. It establishes that the activity has structure — more than one kind of spike, arriving unevenly — which is what makes the later analytical step tempting and is also exactly as far as the data goes. Two spike populations are a fact about the recording. What either population does is not addressed here, and the paper does not claim it is.
- One species, small numbers of electrode pairs.
- Fruiting bodies rather than growing mycelium, which is a different tissue in a different state.
- Electrode insertion is a wound, and drift over multi-day recordings is difficult to exclude.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: Nature PortfolioPublished in a Nature Portfolio journal.
doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-26007-1
Checked against Crossref on 2026-08-31, and they agree on the title, the authors and the year.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-31.