{"id":5866,"date":"2021-10-26T18:09:32","date_gmt":"2021-10-26T18:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/plant-behavior\/?p=5866"},"modified":"2021-10-26T18:10:02","modified_gmt":"2021-10-26T18:10:02","slug":"broadening-the-definition-of-a-nervous-system-to-better-understand-the-evolution-of-plants-and-animals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/plant-behavior\/broadening-the-definition-of-a-nervous-system-to-better-understand-the-evolution-of-plants-and-animals\/","title":{"rendered":"Broadening the definition of a nervous system to better understand the evolution of plants and animals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sergio Miguel-Tom\u00e9 &amp; Rodolfo R. Llin\u00e1s<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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 view-points on the evolution of plants, animals and the nervous system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-file\"><a href=\"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/plant-behavior\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Broadening-the-Definition-of-a-Nervous-System.pdf\">Broadening-the-Definition-of-a-Nervous-System (PDF)<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/plant-behavior\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Broadening-the-Definition-of-a-Nervous-System.pdf\" class=\"wp-block-file__button\" download>Download<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sergio Miguel-Tom\u00e9 &amp; Rodolfo R. Llin\u00e1s 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&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-resources"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/plant-behavior\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/plant-behavior\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/plant-behavior\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/plant-behavior\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/plant-behavior\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5866"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/plant-behavior\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5869,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/plant-behavior\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5866\/revisions\/5869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/plant-behavior\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/plant-behavior\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/plant-behavior\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}