ReviewFrontiers in psychology2016
On Having No Head: Cognition throughout Biological Systems.
Review in Frontiers in psychology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 117 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
117 citing papers in PubMed, 377 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mind(the)Plant: An expandable multimodal facility for the integrated characterization of plant behaviour.Methods in ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Cholinergic Modulation of Proteinoid Microsphere Networks as Prebiotic Depression Models.ACS physical chemistry Au · 2026Article
- The allostery principle supports the symbolic character of signaling circuits: gene regulation provides a form of intelligence to living systems.Theory in biosciences = Theorie in den Biowissenschaften · 2026Article
- The electrofluidic brain as a basement layer for neural computation.Communications biology · 2026Review
- Continual decision-making dynamics across biological organisms.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- Molecular pathways for learning in the single-cell Stentor coeruleus.Current biology : CB · 2026Article
- One Earth + One Health: An Agile, Evolutionary, System-of-Systems Convergence Paradigm.Environmental science & technology · 2026Review
- Mind Everywhere: A Framework for Conceptualizing Goal-Directedness in Biology and Other Domains-Part One.Biological theory · 2026Article
- Anticipation of periodic events influences cell motility in amoeba proteus.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- De-anthropomorphizing the mind: life as a cognitive spectrum in a unified framework for biological minds.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2026Article
- Designing Neural Dynamics: From Digital Twin Modeling to Regeneration.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- The Morphological, Behavioral, and Transcriptomic Life Cycle of Anthrobots.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- A receptor-inactivation model for single-celled habituation in Stentor coeruleus.Current biology : CB · 2025Article
- An in vitro neurobacterial interface reveals direct modulation of neuronal function by gut bacteria.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Associative conditioning in gene regulatory network models increases integrative causal emergence.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Harnessing the analog computing power of regulatory networks with the Regulatory Network Machine.iScience · 2025Article
- Integrating chemical artificial intelligence and cognitive computing for predictive analysis of biological pathways: a case for intrinsically disordered proteins.Biophysical reviews · 2025Review
- Revealing non-trivial information structures in aneural biological tissues via functional connectivity.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- The Multiscale Wisdom of the Body: Collective Intelligence as a Tractable Interface for Next-Generation Biomedicine.BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology · 2025Review
- Uncertainty minimization and pattern recognition inJournal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Article
57 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The central nervous system (CNS) underlies memory, perception, decision-making, and behavior in numerous organisms. However, neural networks have no monopoly on the signaling functions that implement these remarkable algorithms. It is often forgotten that neurons optimized cellular signaling modes that existed long before the CNS appeared during evolution, and were used by somatic cellular networks to orchestrate physiology, embryonic development, and behavior. Many of the key dynamics that enable information processing can, in fact, be implemented by different biological hardware. This is widely exploited by organisms throughout the tree of life. Here, we review data on memory, learning, and other aspects of cognition in a range of models, including single celled organisms, plants, and tissues in animal bodies. We discuss current knowledge of the molecular mechanisms at work in these systems, and suggest several hypotheses for future investigation. The study of cognitive processes implemented in aneural contexts is a fascinating, highly interdisciplinary topic that has many implications for evolution, cell biology, regenerative medicine, computer science, and synthetic bioengineering.
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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.