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Slime molds adapt based on experience, challenging the idea that brains are needed for learning.

Defining learning behaviorally rather than neurally allows its study across diverse systems.

This functional view may help compare learning across systems within a common scientific framework.

The yellow blob that you see in the picture at left is a slime mold, a strange one-cell organism that lives in damp, shadowy areas on the forest floor where it slowly navigates its environment, searching for decaying matter, fungi, and bacteria to feed on. When it finds a food source, it reorganizes itself, retracting from areas with less food.

It looks like a fungus, but it isn’t. It’s also not a plant, and despite its ability to navigate, it’s not an animal either. It belongs to a different group altogether: the protists.

What is really interesting from a psychologist’s perspective is that this single cell shows complex behaviors such as optimizing paths, solving mazes, and adapting to its environment in efficient and sometimes unexpected ways.

Scientists also examined whether slime mold can learn. At........

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