Douglas J Blackiston

Douglas Blackiston worked with Michael Levin on behaviour and signalling in simple animals and tissues. A 2010 paper described an automated platform for training and tracking Xenopus, planaria and zebrafish¹². Later authors used it to score tadpole learning³. Blackiston's name is also attached to work on tail-eye tadpoles⁴ and a 2025 study of information structure in tissue⁷.

In the library: 6 works, named in 12 passages elsewhere
Facts from: ORCID

An automated training device

The 2010 paper describes a platform meant to work for Xenopus, planaria, zebrafish and similar organisms in any laboratory¹. It delivers shocks to individual dishes according to behaviour. Duration, intensity and AC frequency can be set, so different shock paradigms can be compared². In 2020 Pai and colleagues used the platform to train tadpoles to avoid a moving red light, which let them put a number on cognitive performance after a brain defect and its rescue³.

Learning in rebuilt nervous systems

Levin cites Blackiston's work when arguing that nervous systems are not hardwired. Tadpoles with eyes on their tails can see, although those eyes connect to the spinal cord and not the brain⁴. Levin also cites a 2008 paper by Blackiston and colleagues for the finding that learned information persists while the brain is dismantled and rebuilt in metamorphosis⁵. Durant and colleagues point to the same line of work on memory during planarian brain regeneration.

Space, cell cycle and tissue

In the 2017 planarian study, worms returned from space were counted after two months of ordinary care. Fewer were found than among the Earth controls⁶. Blackiston is also cited for a 2009 paper on ion roles in the cell cycle, which George and Bates use to say that calcium, potassium, sodium and chloride all regulate it⁸. The 2025 paper applies functional connectivity analysis to punctured organoids and reports higher edge correlations just after puncture⁷.

SourcesEach quotation was checked word for word against the passage it opens.

We built a system that can be readily applied to studies in Xenopus, planaria, zebrafish, and similar model organisms in any laboratory.Blackiston D, Shomrat T, Nicolas CL, Granata C, Levin M, 2010 · A second-generation device for automated training and quantitative behavior… · open at passage 12
This system offers consistent, balanced shocks to individual dishes based on behavior, with flexible control over duration, intensity, and AC frequency of electric shock.Blackiston D, Shomrat T, Nicolas CL, Granata C, Levin M, 2010 · A second-generation device for automated training and quantitative behavior… · open at passage 21
Using an automated behavior analysis platform (Blackiston et al., 2010a; Figure 10A), a tadpole can be trained to avoid a moving red light, enabling quantification of cognitive performancePai VP, Cervera J, Mafe S, Willocq V, Lederer EK, Levin M, 2020 · HCN2 Channel-Induced Rescue of Brain Teratogenesis via Local and Long-Range… · open at passage 41
Tadpoles engineered to develop with eyes on their tails instead of in their usual spot can see quite well, despite the fact that the eyes connect to the spinal cord, not the brainLevin M, 2019 · The Computational Boundary of a "Self": Developmental Bioelectricity Drives… · open at passage 66
The brain is largely dismantled and rebuilt in a new configuration, but learned information persists (Alloway 1972; Blackiston et al. 2008; Sheiman and Tiras 1996).Levin M, 2023 · Bioelectric networks: the cognitive glue enabling evolutionary scaling from… · open at passage 14
We observed that the number of worms in the container that had gone to space was slightly less than the number of worms that remained on EarthMorokuma J, Durant F, Williams KB, Finkelstein JM…, 2017 · Planarian regeneration in space: Persistent anatomical, behavioral, and… · open at passage 18
Edge time series of post- puncture networks were seen to have more highly correlated edges at the beginning of the post-puncture observation periodBlackiston D, Dromiack H, Grasso C, Varley TF, Moore DG…, 2025 · Revealing non-trivial information structures in aneural biological tissues via… · open at passage 16
It is now known that calcium, potassium, sodium, and chloride all play roles in regulating the cell cycle (Blackiston et al., 2009).George LF, Bates EA, 2022 · Mechanisms Underlying Influence of Bioelectricity in Development · open at passage 27