Computers run on silicon and metal. Mushrooms grow in soil. Yet now, scientists are finding that one could stand in for the other.
Fungi might replace parts of the machines that shape our digital world. The idea sounds strange until you realize how intelligent and resilient these organisms are.
Mushrooms in computing
At The Ohio State University, researchers found that edible mushrooms such as shiitake could act like organic memory chips. When connected to circuits, the mushrooms stored and processed information like a living brain.
Study lead author John LaRocco is a research scientist in psychiatry at Ohio State’s College of Medicine.
“Being able to develop microchips that mimic actual neural activity means you don’t need a lot of power for standby or when the machine isn’t being used,” said LaRocco.
The fungal chips performed surprisingly well. Each could switch electrical states thousands of times per second with high accuracy.
These organic systems did not rely on costly rare-earth minerals or energy-intensive factories, which makes them an appealing alternative to traditional semiconductors.
Learning from nature
Fungi already form vast underground networks that pass signals between roots and trees. The researchers realized these same biological systems could be repurposed to store information.
The mycelium – the thread-like part of a fungus – responds to electrical pulses by changing its resistance. Those shifts act like memories.
In tests, mushrooms adjusted their conductivity when exposed to repeated voltage cycles. Their ability to change behavior after each signal mirrored how neurons in the brain learn.
Over time, the fungi “remembered” patterns of stimulation and became more stable in performance. That self-tuning nature could one day lead to energy-efficient devices that learn continuously, much like biological systems.
Testing mushrooms for computers
To explore this, the team grew shiitake and button mushrooms on organic materials such as wheat germ, hay, and farro seeds.
Once the fungal mats reached maturity, they were dried in sunlight to maintain shape and later sprayed with water to restore conductivity.
“We would connect electrical wires and probes at different points on the mushrooms because distinct parts of it have different electrical properties,” said LaRocco.
Each part responded differently to signals, showing that the internal structure of mushrooms influences how electricity flows.
At specific frequencies, the fungi displayed classic memory loops known as hysteresis curves, confirming their potential as memristors.
Hellbound and Down 