Yes. A mitochondrion with compromised electron transport chain function has a description of its energetic state that diverges sharply from healthy operation. The KL divergence between its actual state and the state it needs to achieve (adequate ATP production, maintained membrane potential) is large. It cannot close this gap alone because its internal machinery is damaged. So it pays a synchronization tax by extending nanotunnels to neighbors, seeking to align its depleted description with the richer descriptions of healthier organelles nearby.
We are all better off when we help one another out in energetic emergencies.
The spectrum from kiss-and-run to IMJs to nanotunnels looks like a hierarchy of coordination depths, each with a different cost-benefit tradeoff.
It would be interesting to know whether there is a critical threshold of network connectivity below which the cristae alignment breaks down discontinuously rather than degrading gradually.
Your analogies are spot on, and allow us lesser prepared readers to keep up with the chemistry. I've seen your kiss-and-run, versus a lasting physiologic relationship, applied to neuronal recruitment and long-term connections in the brain.
Neural plasticity is well researched. Mitochondrial plasticity (my term) is new, and very exciting. When the "powerhouse of the cell" starts to fade, shit's on. So many clinical applications
Charlie Garcia, who stacks here, can speak to any topic. He would enjoy this post.
I suspect his response will sound something like this:
Michael,
You buried the whole thesis in the throwaway line.
"We are all better off when we help one another out in energetic emergencies."
Let's chat. This story has legs, and not the 3-day news cycle. The kind of story
that takes years in peer-reviewed journals.
Charlie
Check him out Michael, at Capital Mischief, this substack.
This was my favorite paper ever written on mitochodnria because it helped me understand the link between melanin and cristae alignment. For me, this solved the "C-value paradox" and the "Regulatory Conundrum" of human evolution.
The reason humans look, think, and operate so differently from chimps, despite sharing 98.8% of the same protein-coding genes, is not because we have different "parts." It is because we have a fundamentally different timing and energy distribution system. Cristae geometry is a fossil for how we did it using an ancient system. Melanin is a chiral chaotic polymer that absorbs all frequencies of light. It is capable of directly communicating with the IMJ sans the genetic metabolic machinery on the IMM. The three divers who saved the EU from Cherobyl on May 4, 1986 are the experiment buried in this paper. All three survived and never got radiation sickness. They did get radiation tans on their legs because of what they had to walk through to save Europe. Their survival meant that radiosynthesis has to have a way to lead to cristae alignment. The "radioactive tan" was the physical manifestation of the body rapidly deploying melanin to create a chiral, spin-selective shield. This allowed electrons to continue "tunneling" through the IMJ even as the delicate genetic machinery was being bombarded. Because this mechanism is driven by physics (CISS and semiconduction) rather than biology (transcription/translation), it is nearly instantaneous and incredibly "hardy." It is the same reason we found out in the last decade that the Chernobyl fungi grow faster in the fire, because they aren't fighting the radiation; they are "plugging into" it.
In regards to the capacity maintaining the continuity of energy homeostasis, is there a difference between different tones of skin melanin levels? For example, paler skin tones seemingly are more susceptible to burning easier or losing their tan faster over more melanin contained skin? Additionally, is there an inner component to this system, for example, melanin in the brain or olfactory systems?
This is so cool! I saw this crista alignment in 2007 in EMs of mouse hearts we took after ischemic preconditioning, as well as a large increase in fusion/fission events and autophagosomes containing mitochondria. At the time we couldn’t pursue all the interesting leads and instead focused on autophagy/mitophagy. I’m thrilled to see this beautiful study and what will come next.
Thank you for choosing the path you did and for sharing your journey. It's easy to see some published papers and take that information and run. It's less easy to see what no one else sees.
I work with couples and there is relational theory which focuses on the “vibe” between couples. When there is deception, the result is a turning away from the partner. I think I will call this out of alignment. Never thought I would see true relationship -connection- show up in a mitochondria paper.
My 2 cents on, Symbiosis and Proton Neural Signaling-
Martin Picard’s article on mitochondrial communication highlights something quietly profound: mitochondria are not isolated energy generators but coordinated participants in a cellular society.
I would like to suggest two reflections that extend this observation.
1. Mitochondria as the Pinnacle Example of Symbiosis
Mitochondria are perhaps biology’s most successful example of endosymbiosis.
The prevailing evolutionary model holds that mitochondria originated when an ancestral archaeal host cell incorporated a free-living bacterium. Rather than digestion or domination, a partnership emerged. Over evolutionary time, this relationship became so complete that neither organism retained independent identity.
The modern eukaryotic cell is therefore not a single organism in the traditional sense but a symbiotic collective.
What Picard’s observations suggest is something even deeper:
Mitochondria do not merely live symbiotically with the cell — they continue to live symbiotically with one another.
Intermitochondrial junctions and coordinated structural alignment imply that cooperation is not optional behavior. It is their inherited nature. Their evolutionary success arose through cooperation, and they appear to persist through continued cooperation.
Energy production may therefore be less an individual achievement and more a collective phenomenon emerging from relational organization.
In this sense, mitochondria are not just the “powerhouse of the cell.” They are a living reminder that complex life itself is built from successful symbiosis.
2. A Hypothesis: Proton Neural Signaling
I would like to propose a speculative hypothesis that might help explain how mitochondrial coordination occurs.
Mitochondria fundamentally operate through proton gradients. Their core function is the controlled movement of hydrogen ions (H⁺) across membranes, creating electrochemical potentials used to generate ATP.
But protons do more than produce energy.
Hydrogen ion concentration determines pH, and pH strongly influences:
enzyme activity
membrane potentials
receptor sensitivity
neurotransmitter behavior
synaptic transmission efficiency
This raises a possibility:
Mitochondria may participate in a form of proton-based signaling, dynamically shaping local pH environments as a means of communication and regulation.
In neural tissue especially, subtle pH shifts within or near the synaptic cleft are known to alter:
neurotransmitter release probability
receptor responsiveness
ion channel gating
signal amplification or dampening
If mitochondrial populations can coordinate proton flux collectively, they may be able to tune the conditions under which information exchange occurs, rather than transmitting signals directly.
In this view, mitochondria would not act like neurons sending messages, but more like a distributed regulatory system adjusting the gain and sensitivity of neural communication itself.
One could call this proton neural signaling — a coordinated modulation of informational exchange through hydrogen ion dynamics.
One Mitochondrion or Many?
Picard’s work hints at an intriguing conceptual shift.
When mitochondria align structurally, exchange signals, and normalize one another’s function, their behavior begins to resemble that of a single distributed system.
Rather than many independent organelles, the cell may host something closer to an integrated mitochondrial network — almost as if there were one extended mitochondrion expressed across many bodies.
The familiar classroom mnemonic calls mitochondria the “mighty mitochondria,” the powerhouse of the cell.
But perhaps the deeper insight is that their power does not arise from strength alone.
Forgive me, it is not just a matter of brain DISorders, it is far more profoundly a matter of brain ORDERs. Communication between/among mitochondria is, please excuse my passion, THE discovery of the century. It is that which changes the definition of a human being and that which makes him/her tick. Please see the ramifications! Use your imagination.
Picard’s discovery raises a question the cell biology literature has not yet answered: what physical mechanism causes cristae to align across the boundary between adjacent mitochondria?
The most plausible answer, based on how biological coupling systems generally work, is that several mechanisms operate in sequence at different distance scales. At long range — tens of micrometers across the cell — biophoton emission and absorption between mitochondria could provide detection and orientation, with cytochrome c oxidase serving as both emitter and receiver.
At intermediate range, chemical signals (calcium, reactive oxygen species, specific lipid species) could provide partner recognition and engagement decisions.
At contact range, the MICOS complex and other identified tethering proteins could provide the physical machinery that locks cristae alignment in place.
Each stage operates where its underlying physics works efficiently.
Each stage hands off to the next at a threshold condition. None of the stages by itself is sufficient; together they are exactly what biology uses elsewhere when it needs to coordinate physical structures across cellular distance.
This multi-stage architecture is consistent with what is known about other biological coupling systems — immune cell-target recognition, axon guidance, bacterial quorum sensing — and would explain why the components of mitochondrial coupling that have been individually characterized seem each to be insufficient on their own. The optical, chemical, and mechanical literatures on mitochondrial coordination have largely developed in isolation from one another. Integrating them into a coherent coupling cascade is the work that remains.
Beautiful finding! Cristae bending away from their thermodynamically favorable geometry to align with a neighbor is the signature of coupled oscillators acquiring lock.
Mitochondria are iron-bearing, electron-transporting organelles - each is like an element in a phased array. The cristae are aligning their electron flow geometry the same way antenna elements align their current distributions.
That was a fascinating read! Thanks for sharing. I live in Newcastle UK, so there’s that, but I’m also an artist and it was fascinating to see how pattern making was involved in such an important discovery. Some of the biology was over my head, but wow what an important discovery! 👏👏👏
Excellent article and thanks for sharing, -fascinating research!!
My thoughts about
-Symbiosis and Proton Neural Signaling-
Martin Picard’s article on mitochondrial communication highlights something quietly profound: mitochondria are not isolated energy generators but coordinated participants in a cellular society.
I would like to suggest two reflections that extend this observation.
⸻
1. Mitochondria as the Pinnacle Example of Symbiosis
Mitochondria are perhaps biology’s most successful example of endosymbiosis.
The prevailing evolutionary model holds that mitochondria originated when an ancestral archaeal host cell incorporated a free-living bacterium. Rather than digestion or domination, a partnership emerged. Over evolutionary time, this relationship became so complete that neither organism retained independent identity.
The modern eukaryotic cell is therefore not a single organism in the traditional sense but a symbiotic collective.
What Picard’s observations suggest is something even deeper:
Mitochondria do not merely live symbiotically with the cell — they continue to live symbiotically with one another.
Intermitochondrial junctions and coordinated structural alignment imply that cooperation is not optional behavior. It is their inherited nature. Their evolutionary success arose through cooperation, and they appear to persist through continued cooperation.
Energy production may therefore be less an individual achievement and more a collective phenomenon emerging from relational organization.
In this sense, mitochondria are not just the “powerhouse of the cell.”
They are a living reminder that complex life itself is built from successful symbiosis.
⸻
2. A Hypothesis: Proton Neural Signaling
I would like to propose a speculative hypothesis that might help explain how mitochondrial coordination occurs.
Mitochondria fundamentally operate through proton gradients. Their core function is the controlled movement of hydrogen ions (H⁺) across membranes, creating electrochemical potentials used to generate ATP.
But protons do more than produce energy.
Hydrogen ion concentration determines pH, and pH strongly influences:
* enzyme activity
* membrane potentials
* receptor sensitivity
* neurotransmitter behavior
* synaptic transmission efficiency
This raises a possibility:
Mitochondria may participate in a form of proton-based signaling, dynamically shaping local pH environments as a means of communication and regulation.
In neural tissue especially, subtle pH shifts within or near the synaptic cleft are known to alter:
* neurotransmitter release probability
* receptor responsiveness
* ion channel gating
* signal amplification or dampening
If mitochondrial populations can coordinate proton flux collectively, they may be able to tune the conditions under which information exchange occurs, rather than transmitting signals directly.
In this view, mitochondria would not act like neurons sending messages, but more like a distributed regulatory system adjusting the gain and sensitivity of neural communication itself.
One could call this proton neural signaling — a coordinated modulation of informational exchange through hydrogen ion dynamics.
⸻
One Mitochondrion or Many?
Picard’s work hints at an intriguing conceptual shift.
When mitochondria align structurally, exchange signals, and normalize one another’s function, their behavior begins to resemble that of a single distributed system.
Rather than many independent organelles, the cell may host something closer to an integrated mitochondrial network — almost as if there were one extended mitochondrion expressed across many bodies.
The familiar classroom mnemonic calls mitochondria the “mighty mitochondria,” the powerhouse of the cell.
But perhaps the deeper insight is that their power does not arise from strength alone.
It took me a while to grasp this in its entirety: mitochondrial cristae cry for help -> mitochondria link -> mitochondrial communication -> an alignment of mitochondrial society. It changes the world.
Truly fascinating. Martin, if the Cristae alignments resonate at a particular vibration and you were able to amplify it to the scale of audible music, what would it sound like?
Really depends how one transposes the vibration. For instance with very fast movement you’d have to pitch shift into audible range, and then decide if you also shift speed (like slowing down bird song.) Since they are moving in 3D space, it would be non-pitched (like a bell), rather than a single tone. since there are shape and therefore vibration changes as the cristae morph, the sound would also morph. Presuming viscosity, sound would be muffled (underwater-ish).
While it can be charming, such audio play is wisely recognized as play, rather than “real”. There are so many subjective aspects, including the type of transposition (scaling, changing waveform, spectral mapping, some other algorithm), mechanical (eg type of microphone, if there is recordable sound present). You could transpose the vibration in so many different ways, it could sound so many ways - like translating a sentence into hundreds of different languages. None of them are any more the right translation than another.
Thank you for taking the time to explain this. I wonder if the morphing, if mapped over time, would follow a limited set of predictable patterns and that would narrow the transposition task. Apologies for the naif skill sets. I sing but that’s about as close as I get to the technical side of things. It’s something narrative I’m trying to visualize.
Don’t know. Healthy human and plant cells emit an average acoustic range that signals health or disease. Some interesting research out there regarding increasing the efficacy of bee venom in crossing blood brain barrier with aid of acoustics. It’s an area of interest for me.
Took me awhile to find an example of what sparked my interest in the topic but here’s a more recent article. The first article I recall reading on Sonoporation stretched back to 2018. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12314279/
This is the most interesting paper I have ever read; thank you so much.
Several questions have arisen because of my research into the developement of ecosystems over billions of years and the fact that they have all been disrupted over the last century by ecotoxins like fluoride and glyphosate based herbicides.
I think the whole energy chain is disrupted from photosynthesis, glycolysis, Krebs leading to low energy source which could then cause the findings in these remarkable videos.
I am reminded of the tight junctions in the gut especially the effects from zonulin from Clostridia - are the channels and other changes being produced in a similar fashion?
I am also reminded of Calcium channels and the action of Mg as a Ca blocker; there is a pandemic of Mg deficiency which I have spent my whole working life trying to prevent as a veterinary surgeon (now retired)and and food chain researcher and practitioner for 60+ years.
It is interesting to note that Thomas Levy in his book on Magnesium tells us that cells of the hearts of patients with myocarditis have mercury levels 20,000X more than normal; how does this affect mitochondria changes?
Fluoride (and heavy metals like lead and mercury) in fertilizer and public water supplies and now many chemicals/ecotoxins and antibiotics, would be another source of ATP and energy reduction to mitochondria. It also causes genetic changes, especially expression of thyroid related genes, and oxidative stress that could directly affect the membrane and channels as described .
Therefore the prevention of these insults to the mitochondria require urgent attention.
Communication among mitochondria reflects the social organization of our bodies and our energetic nature.
Yes. A mitochondrion with compromised electron transport chain function has a description of its energetic state that diverges sharply from healthy operation. The KL divergence between its actual state and the state it needs to achieve (adequate ATP production, maintained membrane potential) is large. It cannot close this gap alone because its internal machinery is damaged. So it pays a synchronization tax by extending nanotunnels to neighbors, seeking to align its depleted description with the richer descriptions of healthier organelles nearby.
We are all better off when we help one another out in energetic emergencies.
The spectrum from kiss-and-run to IMJs to nanotunnels looks like a hierarchy of coordination depths, each with a different cost-benefit tradeoff.
It would be interesting to know whether there is a critical threshold of network connectivity below which the cristae alignment breaks down discontinuously rather than degrading gradually.
https://www.symmetrybroken.com/coherence-at-300-kelvin/#94-chimera-states-and-maintaining-divergence
Michael,
Your analogies are spot on, and allow us lesser prepared readers to keep up with the chemistry. I've seen your kiss-and-run, versus a lasting physiologic relationship, applied to neuronal recruitment and long-term connections in the brain.
Neural plasticity is well researched. Mitochondrial plasticity (my term) is new, and very exciting. When the "powerhouse of the cell" starts to fade, shit's on. So many clinical applications
Charlie Garcia, who stacks here, can speak to any topic. He would enjoy this post.
I suspect his response will sound something like this:
Michael,
You buried the whole thesis in the throwaway line.
"We are all better off when we help one another out in energetic emergencies."
Let's chat. This story has legs, and not the 3-day news cycle. The kind of story
that takes years in peer-reviewed journals.
Charlie
Check him out Michael, at Capital Mischief, this substack.
Black Squirrel, PT, PhD
This was my favorite paper ever written on mitochodnria because it helped me understand the link between melanin and cristae alignment. For me, this solved the "C-value paradox" and the "Regulatory Conundrum" of human evolution.
The reason humans look, think, and operate so differently from chimps, despite sharing 98.8% of the same protein-coding genes, is not because we have different "parts." It is because we have a fundamentally different timing and energy distribution system. Cristae geometry is a fossil for how we did it using an ancient system. Melanin is a chiral chaotic polymer that absorbs all frequencies of light. It is capable of directly communicating with the IMJ sans the genetic metabolic machinery on the IMM. The three divers who saved the EU from Cherobyl on May 4, 1986 are the experiment buried in this paper. All three survived and never got radiation sickness. They did get radiation tans on their legs because of what they had to walk through to save Europe. Their survival meant that radiosynthesis has to have a way to lead to cristae alignment. The "radioactive tan" was the physical manifestation of the body rapidly deploying melanin to create a chiral, spin-selective shield. This allowed electrons to continue "tunneling" through the IMJ even as the delicate genetic machinery was being bombarded. Because this mechanism is driven by physics (CISS and semiconduction) rather than biology (transcription/translation), it is nearly instantaneous and incredibly "hardy." It is the same reason we found out in the last decade that the Chernobyl fungi grow faster in the fire, because they aren't fighting the radiation; they are "plugging into" it.
What a comment! “The three divers who saved Europe…”. Thanks for describing the mechanism so clearly!
In regards to the capacity maintaining the continuity of energy homeostasis, is there a difference between different tones of skin melanin levels? For example, paler skin tones seemingly are more susceptible to burning easier or losing their tan faster over more melanin contained skin? Additionally, is there an inner component to this system, for example, melanin in the brain or olfactory systems?
Many thanks, Suzanne
mitochondrial coregulation?
Indeed - information exchange.
This is so cool! I saw this crista alignment in 2007 in EMs of mouse hearts we took after ischemic preconditioning, as well as a large increase in fusion/fission events and autophagosomes containing mitochondria. At the time we couldn’t pursue all the interesting leads and instead focused on autophagy/mitophagy. I’m thrilled to see this beautiful study and what will come next.
Ha, wonderful to hear you saw this too in mouse hearts!
Thank you for choosing the path you did and for sharing your journey. It's easy to see some published papers and take that information and run. It's less easy to see what no one else sees.
Thank you, Wendy. So meaningful.
I work with couples and there is relational theory which focuses on the “vibe” between couples. When there is deception, the result is a turning away from the partner. I think I will call this out of alignment. Never thought I would see true relationship -connection- show up in a mitochondria paper.
My 2 cents on, Symbiosis and Proton Neural Signaling-
Martin Picard’s article on mitochondrial communication highlights something quietly profound: mitochondria are not isolated energy generators but coordinated participants in a cellular society.
I would like to suggest two reflections that extend this observation.
1. Mitochondria as the Pinnacle Example of Symbiosis
Mitochondria are perhaps biology’s most successful example of endosymbiosis.
The prevailing evolutionary model holds that mitochondria originated when an ancestral archaeal host cell incorporated a free-living bacterium. Rather than digestion or domination, a partnership emerged. Over evolutionary time, this relationship became so complete that neither organism retained independent identity.
The modern eukaryotic cell is therefore not a single organism in the traditional sense but a symbiotic collective.
What Picard’s observations suggest is something even deeper:
Mitochondria do not merely live symbiotically with the cell — they continue to live symbiotically with one another.
Intermitochondrial junctions and coordinated structural alignment imply that cooperation is not optional behavior. It is their inherited nature. Their evolutionary success arose through cooperation, and they appear to persist through continued cooperation.
Energy production may therefore be less an individual achievement and more a collective phenomenon emerging from relational organization.
In this sense, mitochondria are not just the “powerhouse of the cell.” They are a living reminder that complex life itself is built from successful symbiosis.
2. A Hypothesis: Proton Neural Signaling
I would like to propose a speculative hypothesis that might help explain how mitochondrial coordination occurs.
Mitochondria fundamentally operate through proton gradients. Their core function is the controlled movement of hydrogen ions (H⁺) across membranes, creating electrochemical potentials used to generate ATP.
But protons do more than produce energy.
Hydrogen ion concentration determines pH, and pH strongly influences:
enzyme activity
membrane potentials
receptor sensitivity
neurotransmitter behavior
synaptic transmission efficiency
This raises a possibility:
Mitochondria may participate in a form of proton-based signaling, dynamically shaping local pH environments as a means of communication and regulation.
In neural tissue especially, subtle pH shifts within or near the synaptic cleft are known to alter:
neurotransmitter release probability
receptor responsiveness
ion channel gating
signal amplification or dampening
If mitochondrial populations can coordinate proton flux collectively, they may be able to tune the conditions under which information exchange occurs, rather than transmitting signals directly.
In this view, mitochondria would not act like neurons sending messages, but more like a distributed regulatory system adjusting the gain and sensitivity of neural communication itself.
One could call this proton neural signaling — a coordinated modulation of informational exchange through hydrogen ion dynamics.
One Mitochondrion or Many?
Picard’s work hints at an intriguing conceptual shift.
When mitochondria align structurally, exchange signals, and normalize one another’s function, their behavior begins to resemble that of a single distributed system.
Rather than many independent organelles, the cell may host something closer to an integrated mitochondrial network — almost as if there were one extended mitochondrion expressed across many bodies.
The familiar classroom mnemonic calls mitochondria the “mighty mitochondria,” the powerhouse of the cell.
But perhaps the deeper insight is that their power does not arise from strength alone.
It arises from coordination.
From symbiosis.
From acting, collectively, as if they were one.
Forgive me, it is not just a matter of brain DISorders, it is far more profoundly a matter of brain ORDERs. Communication between/among mitochondria is, please excuse my passion, THE discovery of the century. It is that which changes the definition of a human being and that which makes him/her tick. Please see the ramifications! Use your imagination.
Picard’s discovery raises a question the cell biology literature has not yet answered: what physical mechanism causes cristae to align across the boundary between adjacent mitochondria?
The most plausible answer, based on how biological coupling systems generally work, is that several mechanisms operate in sequence at different distance scales. At long range — tens of micrometers across the cell — biophoton emission and absorption between mitochondria could provide detection and orientation, with cytochrome c oxidase serving as both emitter and receiver.
At intermediate range, chemical signals (calcium, reactive oxygen species, specific lipid species) could provide partner recognition and engagement decisions.
At contact range, the MICOS complex and other identified tethering proteins could provide the physical machinery that locks cristae alignment in place.
Each stage operates where its underlying physics works efficiently.
Each stage hands off to the next at a threshold condition. None of the stages by itself is sufficient; together they are exactly what biology uses elsewhere when it needs to coordinate physical structures across cellular distance.
This multi-stage architecture is consistent with what is known about other biological coupling systems — immune cell-target recognition, axon guidance, bacterial quorum sensing — and would explain why the components of mitochondrial coupling that have been individually characterized seem each to be insufficient on their own. The optical, chemical, and mechanical literatures on mitochondrial coordination have largely developed in isolation from one another. Integrating them into a coherent coupling cascade is the work that remains.
Looking forward to your next installment!
David (David A Green, MD)
This is the greatest revolution since Galen: we are systems of energy flow, like solar bodies, like little suns, trading input with output, trying to
keep the flow balanced and running.
Beautiful finding! Cristae bending away from their thermodynamically favorable geometry to align with a neighbor is the signature of coupled oscillators acquiring lock.
Mitochondria are iron-bearing, electron-transporting organelles - each is like an element in a phased array. The cristae are aligning their electron flow geometry the same way antenna elements align their current distributions.
That was a fascinating read! Thanks for sharing. I live in Newcastle UK, so there’s that, but I’m also an artist and it was fascinating to see how pattern making was involved in such an important discovery. Some of the biology was over my head, but wow what an important discovery! 👏👏👏
Ha, a Jordie! Thanks, Paul.
Glad this is inspiring. We need to bring art and the science of energy together. We'd love to see what you make if you get inspired by mitochondria!
Excellent article and thanks for sharing, -fascinating research!!
My thoughts about
-Symbiosis and Proton Neural Signaling-
Martin Picard’s article on mitochondrial communication highlights something quietly profound: mitochondria are not isolated energy generators but coordinated participants in a cellular society.
I would like to suggest two reflections that extend this observation.
⸻
1. Mitochondria as the Pinnacle Example of Symbiosis
Mitochondria are perhaps biology’s most successful example of endosymbiosis.
The prevailing evolutionary model holds that mitochondria originated when an ancestral archaeal host cell incorporated a free-living bacterium. Rather than digestion or domination, a partnership emerged. Over evolutionary time, this relationship became so complete that neither organism retained independent identity.
The modern eukaryotic cell is therefore not a single organism in the traditional sense but a symbiotic collective.
What Picard’s observations suggest is something even deeper:
Mitochondria do not merely live symbiotically with the cell — they continue to live symbiotically with one another.
Intermitochondrial junctions and coordinated structural alignment imply that cooperation is not optional behavior. It is their inherited nature. Their evolutionary success arose through cooperation, and they appear to persist through continued cooperation.
Energy production may therefore be less an individual achievement and more a collective phenomenon emerging from relational organization.
In this sense, mitochondria are not just the “powerhouse of the cell.”
They are a living reminder that complex life itself is built from successful symbiosis.
⸻
2. A Hypothesis: Proton Neural Signaling
I would like to propose a speculative hypothesis that might help explain how mitochondrial coordination occurs.
Mitochondria fundamentally operate through proton gradients. Their core function is the controlled movement of hydrogen ions (H⁺) across membranes, creating electrochemical potentials used to generate ATP.
But protons do more than produce energy.
Hydrogen ion concentration determines pH, and pH strongly influences:
* enzyme activity
* membrane potentials
* receptor sensitivity
* neurotransmitter behavior
* synaptic transmission efficiency
This raises a possibility:
Mitochondria may participate in a form of proton-based signaling, dynamically shaping local pH environments as a means of communication and regulation.
In neural tissue especially, subtle pH shifts within or near the synaptic cleft are known to alter:
* neurotransmitter release probability
* receptor responsiveness
* ion channel gating
* signal amplification or dampening
If mitochondrial populations can coordinate proton flux collectively, they may be able to tune the conditions under which information exchange occurs, rather than transmitting signals directly.
In this view, mitochondria would not act like neurons sending messages, but more like a distributed regulatory system adjusting the gain and sensitivity of neural communication itself.
One could call this proton neural signaling — a coordinated modulation of informational exchange through hydrogen ion dynamics.
⸻
One Mitochondrion or Many?
Picard’s work hints at an intriguing conceptual shift.
When mitochondria align structurally, exchange signals, and normalize one another’s function, their behavior begins to resemble that of a single distributed system.
Rather than many independent organelles, the cell may host something closer to an integrated mitochondrial network — almost as if there were one extended mitochondrion expressed across many bodies.
The familiar classroom mnemonic calls mitochondria the “mighty mitochondria,” the powerhouse of the cell.
But perhaps the deeper insight is that their power does not arise from strength alone.
It arises from coordination.
From symbiosis.
From acting, collectively, as if they were one.
It took me a while to grasp this in its entirety: mitochondrial cristae cry for help -> mitochondria link -> mitochondrial communication -> an alignment of mitochondrial society. It changes the world.
Truly fascinating. Martin, if the Cristae alignments resonate at a particular vibration and you were able to amplify it to the scale of audible music, what would it sound like?
Cool question. What do you think?
Really depends how one transposes the vibration. For instance with very fast movement you’d have to pitch shift into audible range, and then decide if you also shift speed (like slowing down bird song.) Since they are moving in 3D space, it would be non-pitched (like a bell), rather than a single tone. since there are shape and therefore vibration changes as the cristae morph, the sound would also morph. Presuming viscosity, sound would be muffled (underwater-ish).
While it can be charming, such audio play is wisely recognized as play, rather than “real”. There are so many subjective aspects, including the type of transposition (scaling, changing waveform, spectral mapping, some other algorithm), mechanical (eg type of microphone, if there is recordable sound present). You could transpose the vibration in so many different ways, it could sound so many ways - like translating a sentence into hundreds of different languages. None of them are any more the right translation than another.
Thank you for taking the time to explain this. I wonder if the morphing, if mapped over time, would follow a limited set of predictable patterns and that would narrow the transposition task. Apologies for the naif skill sets. I sing but that’s about as close as I get to the technical side of things. It’s something narrative I’m trying to visualize.
Don’t know. Healthy human and plant cells emit an average acoustic range that signals health or disease. Some interesting research out there regarding increasing the efficacy of bee venom in crossing blood brain barrier with aid of acoustics. It’s an area of interest for me.
Took me awhile to find an example of what sparked my interest in the topic but here’s a more recent article. The first article I recall reading on Sonoporation stretched back to 2018. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12314279/
Interesting
This is the most interesting paper I have ever read; thank you so much.
Several questions have arisen because of my research into the developement of ecosystems over billions of years and the fact that they have all been disrupted over the last century by ecotoxins like fluoride and glyphosate based herbicides.
I think the whole energy chain is disrupted from photosynthesis, glycolysis, Krebs leading to low energy source which could then cause the findings in these remarkable videos.
I am reminded of the tight junctions in the gut especially the effects from zonulin from Clostridia - are the channels and other changes being produced in a similar fashion?
I am also reminded of Calcium channels and the action of Mg as a Ca blocker; there is a pandemic of Mg deficiency which I have spent my whole working life trying to prevent as a veterinary surgeon (now retired)and and food chain researcher and practitioner for 60+ years.
It is interesting to note that Thomas Levy in his book on Magnesium tells us that cells of the hearts of patients with myocarditis have mercury levels 20,000X more than normal; how does this affect mitochondria changes?
Fluoride (and heavy metals like lead and mercury) in fertilizer and public water supplies and now many chemicals/ecotoxins and antibiotics, would be another source of ATP and energy reduction to mitochondria. It also causes genetic changes, especially expression of thyroid related genes, and oxidative stress that could directly affect the membrane and channels as described .
Therefore the prevention of these insults to the mitochondria require urgent attention.