{"id":229039,"date":"2026-01-14T17:07:25","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T23:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/cells-use-bioelectricity-to-coordinate-and-make-group-decisions"},"modified":"2026-01-14T17:07:25","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T23:07:25","slug":"cells-use-bioelectricity-to-coordinate-and-make-group-decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/cells-use-bioelectricity-to-coordinate-and-make-group-decisions","title":{"rendered":"Cells Use \u2018Bioelectricity\u2019 To Coordinate and Make Group Decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/cells-use-bioelectricity-to-coordinate-and-make-group-decisions.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>According to the new results, as epithelial tissue grows, cells are packed more tightly together, which increases the electrical current flowing through each cell\u2019s membrane. A weak, old, or energy-starved cell will struggle to compensate, triggering a response that sends water rushing out of the cell, shriveling it up and marking it for death. In this way, electricity acts like a health checkup for the tissue and guides the pruning process.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a very interesting discovery \u2014 finding that bioelectricity is the earliest event during this cell-extrusion process,\u201d said the geneticist <a href=\"https:\/\/vet.purdue.edu\/discovery\/zhang\/index.php\">GuangJun Zhang<\/a> of Purdue University, who studies bioelectrical signals in zebra fish development and wasn\u2019t involved in the study. \u201cIt\u2019s a good example of how a widening electronic-signaling perspective can be used in fundamental biology.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The new discovery adds to the growing assortment of bioelectrical phenomena that scientists have discovered playing out beyond the nervous system, from bacteria swapping signals within a biofilm to cells following electric fields during embryonic development. Electricity increasingly appears to be one of biology\u2019s go-to tools for coordinating and exchanging information between all kinds of cells.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to the new results, as epithelial tissue grows, cells are packed more tightly together, which increases the electrical current flowing through each cell\u2019s membrane. A weak, old, or energy-starved cell will struggle to compensate, triggering a response that sends water rushing out of the cell, shriveling it up and marking it for death. In [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,412,1495],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biological","category-genetics","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229039\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}