ReviewPlant signaling & behavior2021
Broadening the definition of a nervous system to better understand the evolution of plants and animals.
Review in Plant signaling & behavior, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
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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
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
- Synchronized Chromatin Reorganization as a Key Biomarker in Anesthetic Effects on Plants.Chemical & biomedical imaging · 2026Article
- Plant emotion revisited: toward a new conceptual framework.Protoplasma · 2026Review
- Review
- Reproductive success in the anthropocene: A view through a One Health lens.The anthropocene review · 2025Review
- Beyond synapses: cytoplasmic connections in brain function and evolution.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Don't jump the gun quite yet: aiming for the true target in plant neurobiology research.Protoplasma · 2025Article
- The "plant neurobiology" revolution.Plant signaling & behavior · 2024Review
- A Roadmap from Functional Materials to Plant Health Monitoring (PHM).Macromolecular bioscience · 2024Review
- Chemical cognition: chemoconnectomics and convergent evolution of integrative systems in animals.Animal cognition · 2023Article
- From dark to darkness, negative phototropism influences the support-tree location of the massive woody climberPlant signaling & behavior · 2022Article
- Alternative neural systems: What is a neuron? (Ctenophores, sponges and placozoans).Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2022Article
- Our sisters the plants? notes from phylogenetics and botany on plant kinship blindness.Plant signaling & behavior · 2021Article
- Selective Advantages of Synapses in Evolution.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2021Article
- Enacting Plant-Inspired Robotics.Frontiers in neurorobotics · 2021Article
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
Most textbook definitions recognize only animals as having nervous systems. However, for the past couple decades, botanists have been meticulously studying long-distance signaling systems in plants, and some researchers have stated that plants have a simple nervous system. Thus, an academic conflict has emerged between those who defend and those who deny the existence of a nervous system in plants. This article analyses that debate, and we propose an alternative to answering yes or no: broadening the definition of a nervous system to include plants. We claim that a definition broader than the current one, which is based only on a phylogenetic viewpoint, would be helpful in obtaining a deeper understanding of how evolution has driven the features of signal generation, transmission and processing in multicellular beings. Also, we propose two possible definitions and exemplify how broader a definition allows for new viewpoints on the evolution of plants, animals and the nervous system.
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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.