OpenMycoNet · Knowledge
Bioelectricity in Fungi & How BioComm Measures It
What research shows about electrical signals in fungal mycelium — and what OpenMycoNet builds from it with its own technology.
Scientific Background
Fungi Send Measurable Electrical Signals
Fungal mycelium generates bioelectrical impulses with neuron-like characteristics: spiking patterns, signal propagation, non-linear properties. Recent reviews show that fungal networks generate reproducible electrical activity — scientifically established, not merely claimed. A particularly rigorous 2025 study confirmed the biological origin of these signals using PCB electrodes, a Faraday cage, and biocide controls, ruling out common sources of error such as electromagnetic interference or measurement artefacts.
Just how structured this electrical activity actually is was shown by a widely cited 2022 analysis: the distribution of spike-train lengths in fungal mycelium statistically resembles the distribution of word lengths in human languages. That doesn't prove fungi "speak" — but it shows the signals have a recognisable internal structure that goes well beyond noise.
Scientific Background
From Observation to Computation
That these signals are not just present but technically usable is shown by a series of studies by Andrew Adamatzky: mycelium exhibits neuronal spiking, logic-gate-like properties, and non-linear processing — basic requirements for any kind of pattern recognition. A further study shows that mycelium reliably transmits frequency-modulated signals in the range of 100 to 10,000 hertz.
The latest research to date — a 2025 paper on bioelectrical sensing with an AI interface for living fungal networks — is conceptually closely related to what OpenMycoNet implements with BioComm: hardware that captures living mycelial signals and makes them usable for machine learning.
OpenMycoNet's Own Development
What BioComm Actually Measures
The research described above is the scientific foundation. What follows now is OpenMycoNet's own technical implementation — for which there is no external source, nor does one need to exist, since this is our own hardware development, not a citable research result.
The BioComm sensor node is built around an ESP32 microcontroller with a LoRa radio module, measuring on eight channels simultaneously via a 16-bit analogue-to-digital converter — bioelectrical signals as well as soil and environmental data such as temperature, humidity and CO₂. The weatherproof IP65 housing is designed for continuous field use, powered via USB-C or LiPo battery.
Up to four nodes transmit their data via LoRa (a realistic range of 1–3 km in forest terrain) to a central BioComm Bridge, which aggregates all data streams and forwards them to the server via WiFi. In practical use, this creates a system of multiple independently measuring nodes with a shared data connection — more on the hardware in detail.
OpenMycoNet's Own Development
Beyond Measuring: Targeted Electrical Stimulation
BioComm isn't designed for passive measurement alone. The hardware can also feed electrical signals into the substrate in a targeted way — bidirectionally, in other words: sending and receiving over the same electrode interface. The aim isn't to influence the network, but to test something more methodologically fundamental: does the mycelium respond reproducibly to a defined electrical stimulus? That's the difference between pure observation and perturbation — between correlation and the ability to test causality.
This bidirectional electrical stimulation method is OpenMycoNet's own technical development, protected by a granted utility model. Important for context: the research cited above establishes that electrical activity in fungal mycelium exists, is measurable and reproducible — it does not establish that OpenMycoNet's specific stimulation method is scientifically validated. Nor is that the claim being made: the stimulation is a tool for testing hypotheses, not an already-proven result.
Whether and how the mycelium responds to electrical stimuli, how reproducible such responses are, and what they reveal about the underlying signalling pathways — these are open questions that BioComm is meant to help answer, not answers that are already settled.
Read More
This page builds on the mycorrhizal fundamentals covered elsewhere. The full list of studies is on the Sources page, technical details on the loan device are on the Hardware page.