# How does the Venus flytrap count? [closed]

What is the physical mechanism the Venus Flytrap exploits to time the interval between an electric signal and the following one?

## closed as off-topic by Jon Custer, John Rennie, Kyle Kanos, M. Enns, ZeroTheHeroSep 8 '17 at 12:58

• This question does not appear to be about physics within the scope defined in the help center.
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• IMO this a BiologySE question, all biological processes are ultimately based on physics. – user167453 Sep 7 '17 at 20:35
• I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because the physics is contained in biochemistry, so the question should be elsewhere. – Jon Custer Sep 8 '17 at 1:40
• The question is biophysical. In this case the answer is more about voltage integration than chemistry, so I think it is slightly more on the physics side than the biology side. – Anders Sandberg Sep 8 '17 at 9:38

Venus flytraps generally appear to decide and act based on leaky summation and an action threshold. Basically electrical spikes (action potentials) arrive at times $t_i$ and are summed into a membrane voltage or charge $\tau V'(t)=\sum_i \delta(t_i-t)-V$; when this reaches a threshold $\theta$ an action occurs. This is very similar to "integrate-and-fire" neuron models. Note that if signals arrive too slowly, the voltage has had time to decline and there is no chance to reach the threshold, while a quicker sequence can sum together and reach the threshold.