Molecular pathways of learning in the single-celled ciliate <em>Stentor coeruleus</em>

How can a single cell learn without a brain? Although learning and memory are often viewed as unique features of animals with complex nervous systems, single-celled organisms also demonstrate basic forms of learning and memory. The giant single cell Stentor coeruleus responds to mechanical stimuli by contracting into a compact shape. When a Stentor cell is repeatedly stimulated at a constant level of force, it will habituate and learn to ignore that stimulus but will still respond to stronger stimuli. Here, we explored the molecular changes that occur during the formation of this cellular memory in order to improve our understanding of non-synaptic learning. RNA sequencing identified candidate proteins and genes that change over the course of learning and forgetting. These candidates point towards the regulation of Stentor learning by calcium signaling and protein phosphorylation. Ultimately, these findings shed light on the origins of intelligence independent of complex multicellular c..., , # Molecular pathways of learning in the single-celled ciliate *Stentor coeruleus*

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.z34tmpgrm](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.z34tmpgrm)

## Description of the data and file structure

*Stentor coeruleus* is a model for studying learning in single cells because they undergo habituation after training with mechanical stimuli. We performed RNA sequencing on trained and untrained cells to identify transcriptomic changes during the process of unicellular learning. Annotation information can be found on https://stentor.ciliate.org/

We did experiments on monoculture cells, which were sourced from the same subculture of *Stentor coeruleus* cells, as well as experiments on polyculture cells, which were sourced from different subcultures. The monoculture data are in the individual files with the \"monoculture\" descriptor, while the polyculture cell data are located in the \"rna_exp2\" zip folder. Details about naming conventions and sample descriptions are included below ..., ,