Received: 4 July 2017 Revised: 26 August 2017 Accepted: 27 August 2017 DOI: 10.1111/pce.13065 OPINION Are plants sentient? Paco Calvo Visiting Researcher1,2 | Vaidurya Pratap Sahi3 | Anthony Trewavas FRS1 1 Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Mayfield Road, Abstract Edinburgh EH9 3JH, UK Feelings in humans are mental states representing groups of physiological functions that usually 2 Minimal Intelligence Lab, University of have defined behavioural purposes. Feelings, being evolutionarily ancient, are thought to be coor- Murcia, Murcia, Spain dinated in the brain stem of animals. One function of the brain is to prioritise between competing 3 Molecular Cell Biology, Karlsruhe Institute of mental states and, thus, groups of physiological functions and in turn behaviour. Plants use Technology, 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany groups of coordinated physiological activities to deal with defined environmental situations but Correspondence currently have no known mental state to prioritise any order of response. Plants do have a ner- P. Calvo, Visiting Researcher, Minimal Intelligence Lab (MINTLab), Edificio Luis Vives, vous system based on action potentials transmitted along phloem conduits but which in addition, Campus de Espinardo, Universidad de Murcia, through anastomoses and other cross‐links, forms a complex network. The emergent potential for Murcia 30100, Spain. this excitable network to form a mental state is unknown, but it might be used to distinguish Email:
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[email protected] between different and even contradictory signals to the individual plant and thus determine a pri- ority of response. This plant nervous system stretches throughout the whole plant providing the Funding information Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and potential for assessment in all parts and commensurate with its self‐organising, phenotypically Sport through a ‘Stays of professors and senior plastic behaviour.