US boffins claim early tests indicate edible mushrooms can function as organic memory devices, though significant challenges remain before the lab experiment can be turned into something practical.

Researchers at Ohio State University say they cultivated and "trained" shiitake and button mushrooms to act as memristors - electronic components that retain information about previous electrical states.

By connecting custom circuits to dehydrated fungal samples, they say they replicated the memory behavior typically seen in semiconductor components.

"We would connect electrical wires and probes at different points on the mushrooms because distinct parts have different electrical properties," said John LaRocco, lead author of the study, who is a research scientist in psychiatry at Ohio State'

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