In a nutshell: Researchers at The Ohio State University have demonstrated that common fungi, such as shiitake mushrooms, can process and store digital information – a finding that could help shape the future of sustainable computing. The study explores how fungal tissues might serve as organic replacements for metal-based microchips.
Mushrooms have long attracted scientific attention for their complex biological networks and resilience across environments. Those same biological systems, researchers found, can be engineered to create "memristors" – devices that retain memory of electrical activity.
Memristors already exist in conventional silicon chips, but the Ohio State team sought an organic equivalent that could operate in accordance with the principles of bioelectronics, a growing field that merges biology and computing.
According to researchers, the fungal structures known as mycelia provide a natural substrate for the conduction and storage of electrical signals. In the experiment, mushrooms, including shiitake and button varieties, were cultivated under controlled conditions, then dehydrated to preserve their internal structure. Electrodes were attached to different regions of the caps and stems to record the material's response to electrical pulses at varying voltages and frequencies.
Measurements revealed that the fungal circuits could toggle between electrical states up to 5,850 times per second, achieving nearly 90 percent signal retention when used as temporary computer memory. This switching ability, similar to that of random-access memory, declined at higher frequencies. However, researchers improved performance by linking multiple mushroom samples, producing networked systems that behaved in ways reminiscent of neural pathways.
John LaRocco, a research scientist in psychiatry at Ohio State's College of Medicine and lead author of the study, said the outcome indicates that fungal materials can mimic certain patterns of neural activity without the need for continuous power. That low-power potential, he said, could have clear benefits in computational efficiency and energy consumption.
While fungal electronics have been explored previously, the Ohio State study advances the field by applying systematic electrical testing and combining biological cultivation with semiconductor design principles. Unlike conventional chips, the creation of fungal memristors does not require rare-earth metals or intensive energy use in manufacturing. Their organic composition also makes them biodegradable, offering a potential path toward reducing electronic waste.
Co-author Qudsia Tahmina, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Ohio State, said the results illustrate how natural systems may inspire alternative computing models. As concerns over the environmental cost of technology production grow, interest in bio-based electronic materials has accelerated. Researchers believe that mushroom-based circuits could one day complement or even replace conventional devices in certain low-power or specialized computing applications.
The team noted that future development will depend on refining cultivation techniques to yield more uniform electrical behavior, as well as scaling the technology to microscopic dimensions. Current experimental designs still rely on visible physical samples rather than nanometer-scale components. However, as LaRocco explained, fungal computation could be implemented in a range of ways, from small-scale laboratory electronics to industrial biofabrication processes.
Possible uses extend from edge computing systems and aerospace sensors to wearable technologies and adaptive electronic components. Each would rely on the innate connectivity and adaptability of fungal networks, qualities that parallel the structure of biological intelligence. Still, significant engineering work remains before these systems can match the speed and durability of silicon semiconductors.