Do Plants Respond to Pain?

[pErvinalia]

Rev, there is nothing like consensus in the biological community for Plant Neurobiology. It is a fringe study that has thrown up some interesting parallels but it is NOT accepted science and definitely has NOT even come close to proving neural networks in plants, let alone anything analogous to intelligence.

I never said it had. Perhaps you need to reread the thread?

[pErvinalia]

But you are quite possibly right that it's a fringe concept, and perhaps I was wrong to call it a "serious" discipline. I guess we'll see what develops over the years. The problem I have with dismissing things out of hand is when it is based on faulty reasoning. For example: plants can't have a nervous system because they don't have nerve cells /neurons. Well it's not surprising is it, as nervous systems and nerve cells and neurons are animal features. Essentially one would be saying that a plant isn't an animal. No shit. The other problem is anthropomorphism. It's easy to ascribe things like intelligence and consciousness and emotions etc on other animals, as they share so much morphology and function with us. But does that necessarily mean that other life forms can't have analogues?

The real question is: Are there any functional similarities in these fields between plants and animals? Thinking about problems outside the box is a good approach. It may not lead to anything, but it is important to explore potentially new phenomena. As long as the science employed is rigorous, it should be encouraged.

[JimC]

Even if plants have some form of signalling via electrical impulses through analogues to neurones, it would never be more than the equivalent of a neural net, for example in jellyfish. Coelenterates have no CNS to receive and process signals - the network simply allows a more co-ordinated system of movement. To me, this rules out attributing "pain" to a jellyfish, and therefore to plants, even if their neurone analogues were functional.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Even if plants have some form of signalling via electrical impulses through analogues to neurones, it would never be more than the equivalent of a neural net, for example in jellyfish. Coelenterates have no CNS to receive and process signals - the network simply allows a more co-ordinated system of movement. To me, this rules out attributing "pain" to a jellyfish, and therefore to plants, even if their neurone analogues were functional.

There are no such things as Coelenterates anymore, Jim. It is an obsolete term and what was once included in that definition is now split into two, unrelated, groups - Cnidaria and Ctenophora.

[JimC]

Even if plants have some form of signalling via electrical impulses through analogues to neurones, it would never be more than the equivalent of a neural net, for example in jellyfish. Coelenterates have no CNS to receive and process signals - the network simply allows a more co-ordinated system of movement. To me, this rules out attributing "pain" to a jellyfish, and therefore to plants, even if their neurone analogues were functional.

There are no such things as Coelenterates anymore, Jim. It is an obsolete term and what was once included in that definition is now split into two, unrelated, groups - Cnidaria and Ctenophora.

I like the word!

It brings back good memories of the Zoology department of yore...

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Even if plants have some form of signalling via electrical impulses through analogues to neurones, it would never be more than the equivalent of a neural net, for example in jellyfish. Coelenterates have no CNS to receive and process signals - the network simply allows a more co-ordinated system of movement. To me, this rules out attributing "pain" to a jellyfish, and therefore to plants, even if their neurone analogues were functional.

There are no such things as Coelenterates anymore, Jim. It is an obsolete term and what was once included in that definition is now split into two, unrelated, groups - Cnidaria and Ctenophora.

I like the word!

It brings back good memories of the Zoology department of yore...

Well it's paraphyletic! SO there!

So, for that matter, is "Fish".

[JimC]

I'm paralytic! So there!

[pErvinalia]

I'm parapathetic.

[tattuchu]

I'm parapathetic.

I'm apoplectic

Anyway, I should hope that plants respond to pain. It's no fun torturing them if they don't.

[Svartalf]

I'm paralytic! So there!

You're not, you just had too much gin.

[piscator]

Prophylactic-ly, most prefer peripatetic peregrination to supererogation.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Prophylactic-ly, most prefer peripatetic peregrination to supererogation.

You're paraphrasing!

[Warren Dew]

Seems like a lot of people are posting without watching the video. Of course, I also had trouble viewing the original video, so here's the Youtube version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGLABm7jJ-Y

This shows that plant responses to stimuli can be suppressed by anesthetization with ether, and that damage results in propagation of electrical signals through channels in the plants.