Plants Might Have Memories? Let's Hope They Don't Hold Grudges!

As I was reading the Gizmodo piece, I couldn't help but think about the M. Night Shyamalan movie, The Happening... but I think we're safe.

Gizmodo - Mind F**k Alert: Plants May Have Memories

Plants have an incredible knack for greening and flowering in sync with the seasons. We’ve been trying to figure out how they do it for years, and now, scientists have uncovered evidence that memory is involved.

Of course, we aren’t talking about memories stored in neurons. It’s something much stranger.

Misfolded proteins called prions—which lead to personality changes, dementia, and death in humans—may serve as a type of long-term memory in plants. That’s the fascinating possibility raised by a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, which shows that a plant protein involved in responding to light and temperature may have shapeshifting, prion-like powers, allowing it to form environmental memories that can distinguish a single cold night from a shift in seasons.

and from the research paper, Luminidependens (LD) is an Arabidopsis protein with prion behavior

Prion proteins provide the best-understood mode for protein-based molecular memory. Since their discovery in mammals, prions have been identified in diverse organisms including fungi, Aplysia, and Drosophila, but not in the plant kingdom. Applying methods we used to uncover yeast prions, we identified nearly 500 Arabidopsis proteins that harbor potential prion-like domains (PrDs). At least one of these domains, Luminidependens PrD, had some of the classical characteristics of prion proteins when tested experimentally in yeast, making it, to our knowledge, the first protein from the plant kingdom with bona fide prion attributes. Importantly, Luminidependens is involved in the process of flowering, a crucial development course that integrates several internal and external cues, including memories of winter, for its regulation.

A little more background might be necessary and I pulled an all nighter programming last night so bear with me. Many of us are familiar with prions as the reason why eating a single hot dog might kill you years in the future. For those of you who aren't aware of what prions are, they're responsible for a number of completely incurable, fatal diseases, like Creutzfeldt-Jakob (the human equivalent of BSE aka "Mad Cow Disease"), Kuru and Fatal Familial Insomnia (FFI) — a disease that causes progressively worsening insomnia which leads to hallucinations, delirium and finally death. Prions are unique among pathogens because 1) they're a single protein molecule and 2) because despite this fact, they can replicate themselves (all without DNA or RNA). They do this by inducing other "normally" folded proteins to misfold when they come into contact with them. Worse yet, prions aggregate to form plaques. Which reminds me, they've also been implicated in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Suffices to say, prions are bad can be bad. In fact, recent research has demonstrated that prion like proteins might play an important role in the storage of long term memories in organisms as diverse as mice, giant sea slugs, humans and if the researcher's hypothesis is correct, plants.

Columbia University Medical Center - Long-term Memories Are Maintained by Prion-like Proteins

Kausik Si and Dr. Kandel first identified functional prions in the giant sea slug (Aplysia) and found they contribute to the maintenance of memory storage. More recently, the Kandel laboratory searched for and found a similar protein in mice, called CPEB3.

In one of many experiments described in the paper by Luana Fioriti, the researchers challenged mice to repeatedly navigate a maze, allowing the animals to create a long-term memory. But when the researchers knocked out the animal’s CPEB3 gene two weeks after the memory was made, the memory disappeared.

The researchers then discovered how CPEB3 works inside the neurons to maintain long-term memories. “Like disease-causing prions, functional prions come in two varieties, a soluble form and a form that creates aggregates,” said. Kandel. “When we learn something and form long-term memories, new synaptic connections are made, the soluble prions in those synapses are converted into aggregated prions. The aggregated prions turn on protein synthesis necessary to maintain the memory.”

As long as these aggregates are present, Kandel says, long-term memories persist. Prion aggregates renew themselves by continually recruiting newly made soluble prions into the aggregates. “This ongoing maintenance is crucial,” said Dr. Kandel. “It’s how you remember, for example, your first love for the rest of your life.”

Of course, plants don't have neurons so they are incapable of forming memories as we do but the big deal here is that plants might well have a mechanism for storing, retrieving and making use of information.

a reply to: theantediluvian Can't remember exactly what book I was reading, but most likely The Secret Life of Plants, where someone went past a bush and whacked at it with a machete or something and then walked passed it again at another time and the bush swayed away from it's attacker. I think this lead to experiments in the same nature of measuring a plants movement away from their attackers.
My apologies if the link isn't the same book that I had read years ago, but it is a book in line with your topic in your OP.
I have believed that plants are capable of feelings and remembering ever since I read about the experiments of harming them and the reactions then measured for awhile now.
Thank you for your OP, it is very insightful and interesting.😊

Good find, I've always wondered how plants "sense" there enviroment. This new research could go a long way to explaining it...

a reply to: peppycat

I watched that very thing as a half hour educational tv show, years ago. They hooked the plant up to some sort of thingy that read reactions from the plants.

It sure took a long time between then and now for definitive proof

a reply to: peppycat

I know what experiments your referring to, unfortunately I can't remember from the top of my head the name of the documentary I saw that covered the experiments. That book you linked to looks like and interesting read though.

I now know what to spend my amazon gift card on.

Wasn't there an incident many years ago in Arizona where a man was shooting a cactus for target practice ?

Then because it had been riddled with holes it fell down and killed him. Talk about environmentally friendly grudge.

a reply to: snowspirit

They hooked the plant up to some sort of thingy that read reactions from the plants.

I believe it was a lie detector if I'm not mistaken.

a reply to: peppycat

I don't believe that plants are capable of cognition or feelings but I do find it interesting that not only have researchers found that plants do "talk" to one another — relaying information with chemicals — some plant communication is actually fairly robust and includes things like "sounding the alarm" to nearby plants when they're being munched on.

a reply to: theantediluvian
Conscious beings usually after Ascending beyond their flesh are buried in the grounds where Flora at times grows out of. Could there be a connection with soil that has had some buried within it overtime and the flora that grows from said soil?

1 is still processing...
NAMASTE*******

a reply to: surfer_soul

I believe you're referring to Cleve Backster and his book, Primary Perception: Biocommunication with Plants, Living Foods, and Human Cells.

a reply to: theantediluvian

That's definitely the same researcher, thanks, though it was a short documentary about it recall viewing, and I certainly won't be buying that book with my gift card, have you seen the price? pfft...

I think it was this, though I thought it was longer than 10 minutes.

a reply to: surfer_soul I think YouTube might have a longer version... for free! Library might have the book.

a reply to: peppycat

I'm reading that book during my gym trips recently. It's freaking mindblowing. Saying plants have memories is barely skimming the tip of the iceberg.

I had a pineapple c99 plant from wallyduck when I lived in florida that I had planted in my buddies back yard and I had a dream in first person where I saw a arm with a blade in hand chop it down. The next day I go into work and my boys girlfriend asked me if I knew what happened to Cindy and I said I already knew. Sure enough it was gone as I went there after work.

If you have psychic abilities plants can talk to you over distances.

a reply to: theantediluvian


I recall an old Viet Nam war cry: "Kill them all. Let God sort them out."
In this regard, I'll change that saying: "Kill them all. let the gardener sort them out."

(I know, tasteless joke.)

a reply to: theantediluvian

pretty impressive. i like the way trees share nutrients with each other.
there was an experiment on Myth Buster where they was testing if plants can feel and predict danger.
to th point where they just knew it was going to happen before it happened

they put some measuring equipment on them and then made actions that they was going to burn it, and it freaked out loads. it got the point where they was just thinking about harming it with no action, and still freaked out.
here is the video- about 5mins long - www.youtube.com...

was quite interesting .whether it proves anything im unsure.

We all share 1 common attribute, plants and humans all have D.M.T which some beilve is a connection that we not yet grasped.

a reply to: surfer_soul



www.youtube.com... - think it was this,.

I know what experiments your referring to, unfortunately I can't remember from the top of my head the name of the documentary I saw that covered the experiments. That book you linked to looks like and interesting read though.

a reply to: lSkrewloosel

I watched the myth busters video, thanks for sharing, interesting to see their experiment with the same lie detector as used by Cleve Baxter backed up his findings. Even to the point where the planted reacted to intention(thoughts) alone... That's truly amazing! There needs to be much more research conducted on this phenomena.

Here's another clip from the Smithsonian no less, this experiment was conducted to see if plants can generate electrical signals, despite the fact they have no nerves. Again surprisingly, the plants in the experiment do produce small electrical charges when stressed. They even go so far as to treat a plant with Ether, an early knock out drug used on humans. once treated with this substance the plant stops reacting as if its effectively anesthetized.


This is fascinating stuff, how it's not got more attention on this site I find peculiar. At one time this would have been right up the ATS communitys street, rather than which stooge will be the next president...

Plant intelligence. Combine that with your being and become free.

Stephen King wrote a book called Insomnia where his character, due to lack of sleep, started seeing auras like a balloon string above people's heads. This particular part in the book he walks into a friend's house where fresh -cut roses are in a vase. Those beautiful roses had an ugly, black and decaying aura above it and he could feel them crying as they slowly died.

It affected me so much that I stopped buying flowers and owning plants.