skunkushybrid
New Member
THE CANNABIS BRAIN
Although plants are generally immobile and lack the most obvious brain activities of animals and humans, they are not only able to show all the attributes of intelligent behaviour but they are also equipped with neuronal molecules, especially synaptotagmins and glutamate/glycine-gated glutamate receptors. Recent advances in plant cell biology allowed identification of plant synapses transporting the plant-specific neurotransmitter-like molecule, auxin. This suggests that synaptic communication is not limited to animals and humans but seems to be widespread throughout plant tissues. Root apices seated at the anterior pole of the plant body show many features which allow us to propose that they, especially their transition zones, act in some way as brain-like command centres. The opposite posterior pole harbours sexual organs and is specialized for plant reproduction. Last but not least, we propose that vascular tissues represent highways for plant nervous activity allowing rapid exchange of information between the growing points of above-ground organs and the brain-like zones in the root apices.
There is a long history of studies on plant intelligence starting with ARISTOTLE in about 280BC, who was convinced that plants have a soul and feelings, and culminating with Charles DARWINS (1880) statement, in his influential book The Power of Movement in Plants, that the root apex acts like a diffuse brain, resembling brains of lower animals. On page 573, Charles DARWIN, assisted by his son, FRANCIS, wrote about the root apex with its . . . brain being seated within the anterior end of the body, receiving impressions from the sense-organs, and directing the several movements (DARWIN, 1880). Although studies on plant neurobiology continue up to the present day (BOSE,1926; SIMONS, 1992; ROSHCHINA, 2001), they have been pushed to the extreme periphery of plant biology, as though they were considered scientifically incorrect and embracing some type of parapsychology. Here, we wish to show that this view is incorrect and we, for the first time, discuss critically the new data on nervous plant biology obtained both from electrophysiology as well as from cell and molecular biology. Our conclusion is that there is highly specialized group of cells in the root apex, which has almost all the attributes of a brain-like tissue. Historically, plants and animals were considered to be organized on contrasting principles due to the immobility of plants. But the history of cell doctrine, elaborated preferentially by means of observations upon plant material and later fully confirmed for animals (HARRIS, 1999), is a nice example of how originally contrasting ideas have finally converged together. Our present concept, that brain-like attributes are a defining feature of a highly specialised zone of the root apex, is another step in showing that plants and animals, despite obvious superficial differences, are much closer to each other as would ever have been considered. The discovery of these features of nervous-like activities in plants also closes the gap noticed in an attempt to harmonise the number of biological sub-systems necessary for the processing matter, energy and information in both plants and animals (Barlow 1999).
There is a long history of studies on plant intelligence starting with ARISTOTLE in about 280BC, who was convinced that plants have a soul and feelings, and culminating with Charles DARWINS (1880) statement, in his influential book The Power of Movement in Plants, that the root apex acts like a diffuse brain, resembling brains of lower animals. On page 573, Charles DARWIN, assisted by his son, FRANCIS, wrote about the root apex with its . . . brain being seated within the anterior end of the body, receiving impressions from the sense-organs, and directing the several movements (DARWIN, 1880). Although studies on plant neurobiology continue up to the present day (BOSE,1926; SIMONS, 1992; ROSHCHINA, 2001), they have been pushed to the extreme periphery of plant biology, as though they were considered scientifically incorrect and embracing some type of parapsychology. Here, we wish to show that this view is incorrect and we, for the first time, discuss critically the new data on nervous plant biology obtained both from electrophysiology as well as from cell and molecular biology. Our conclusion is that there is highly specialized group of cells in the root apex, which has almost all the attributes of a brain-like tissue. Historically, plants and animals were considered to be organized on contrasting principles due to the immobility of plants. But the history of cell doctrine, elaborated preferentially by means of observations upon plant material and later fully confirmed for animals (HARRIS, 1999), is a nice example of how originally contrasting ideas have finally converged together. Our present concept, that brain-like attributes are a defining feature of a highly specialised zone of the root apex, is another step in showing that plants and animals, despite obvious superficial differences, are much closer to each other as would ever have been considered. The discovery of these features of nervous-like activities in plants also closes the gap noticed in an attempt to harmonise the number of biological sub-systems necessary for the processing matter, energy and information in both plants and animals (Barlow 1999).