ReviewPlant signaling & behavior2009
The 'root-brain' hypothesis of Charles and Francis Darwin: Revival after more than 125 years.
Review in Plant signaling & behavior, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed, 159 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Francis Darwin (1848-1925): the biologist in the shadow of father Charles.Plant signaling & behavior · 2025Article
- Plant Behavioral Ecology.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Plant "intelligence" and the misuse of historical sources as evidence.Protoplasma · 2025Review
- Views and perspectives on the indoleamines serotonin and melatonin in plants: past, present and future.Plant signaling & behavior · 2024Review
- A system for the study of roots 3D kinematics in hydroponic culture: a study on the oscillatory features of root tip.Plant methods · 2024Article
- Motor cognition in plants: from thought to real experiments.Theoretical and experimental plant physiology · 2024Article
- HPlant, cell & environment · 2023Review
- Kinematic Evidence of Root-to-Shoot Signaling for the Coding of Support Thickness in Pea Plants.Biology · 2022Article
- Alternative neural systems: What is a neuron? (Ctenophores, sponges and placozoans).Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2022Article
- Hydroponic cultivation conditions allowing the reproducible investigation of poplar root suberization and water transport.Plant methods · 2021Article
- Towards the Idea of Molecular Brains.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Review
- Debunking a myth: plant consciousness.Protoplasma · 2021Review
- Biomolecular Basis of Cellular Consciousness via Subcellular Nanobrains.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Review
- Common Species Maintain a Large Root Radial Extent and a Stable Resource Use Status in Soil-Limited Environments: A Case Study in Subtropical China.Frontiers in plant science · 2020Article
- Constructing living buildings: a review of relevant technologies for a novel application of biohybrid robotics.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2019Article
- The brain: a concept in flux.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Review
- Memory inception and preservation in slime moulds: the quest for a common mechanism.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Jagdish Chandra Bose & plant neurobiology.The Indian journal of medical research · 2019Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This year celebrates the 200(th) aniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, best known for his theory of evolution summarized in On the Origin of Species. Less well known is that, in the second half of his life, Darwin's major scientific focus turned towards plants. He wrote several books on plants, the next-to-last of which, The Power of Movement of Plants, published together with his son Francis, opened plants to a new view. Here we amplify the final sentence of this book in which the Darwins proposed that: "It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle thus endowed [with sensitivity] and having the power of directing the movements of the adjoining parts, acts like the brain of one of the lower animals; the brain being seated within the anterior end of the body, receiving impressions from the sense-organs, and directing the several movements." This sentence conveys two important messages: first, that the root apex may be considered to be a 'brain-like' organ endowed with a sensitivity which controls its navigation through soil; second, that the root apex represents the anterior end of the plant body. In this article, we discuss both these statements.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.