The ceLLM theory was developed by John Coates, Founder of RF Safe. It integrates concepts of bioelectricity and DNA as a resonant mesh network, emphasizing the role of resonant fields and atomic structures in storing genetic and evolutionary information.
Bayesian mechanics is a framework for modeling systems that incorporate uncertainty, using probabilities to represent our knowledge and beliefs about the system’s state. In the context of cellular communication within bioelectric networks, Bayesian mechanics can help model how cells interpret and respond to various bioelectric signals. By treating these signals as probabilistic inputs, we can better understand the decision-making processes of cells, including how they maintain homeostasis or respond to environmental changes. This probabilistic approach can provide insights into complex biological interactions and potential pathways for intervention.
To model bioelectric potentials within the Bayesian mechanics framework, several effective approaches can be utilized:
- Bayesian Inverse Modeling: This method estimates internal bioelectric sources from external measurements and has been applied in fields like electrocardiography and electroencephalography.
- Dynamic Causal Modeling (DCM): DCM uses Bayesian methods to infer the causal influence of one neural region on another, making it useful for understanding complex neural interactions.
- Gaussian Process Priors: These can model spatial variations in bioelectric parameters, providing a flexible and powerful way to represent the bioelectric landscape.
These models help in capturing the uncertainty and complexity inherent in bioelectric systems, offering a robust way to understand cellular communication and interactions
ceLLM theory is a fascinating framework suggesting that DNA acts as a resonant mesh network, where atomic resonance within DNA creates fields that form a high-dimensional probability manifold. This theory proposes that DNA’s elemental structures and resonant fields play a crucial role in storing genetic and evolutionary data, influencing bioelectric energy flow and creating probabilistic features in biological systems. It suggests that DNA’s structure and bioelectric fields are deeply intertwined, offering a novel perspective on genetic information and cellular processes.
How Understanding Our Body’s ‘Electrical Language’ Could Transform Healing and Regeneration
Medicine has advanced dramatically by deciphering the “genetic code”—the instructions encoded in DNA that guide protein synthesis and cellular behavior. Yet despite these achievements, there is growing recognition that genes alone do not fully determine how organisms acquire their shape, regenerate tissues, or maintain structural coherence. Instead, there exists a largely hidden layer of control: bioelectric signals, an ancient communication system that spans from early embryonic development to adult tissue maintenance.
The notion of bioelectricity might at first conjure images of nerve impulses—the language of neurons. But new research from Michael Levin, Christopher J. Martyniuk, and others shows that all cells, including non-neural cells, rely on electrical gradients to encode and interpret morphological instructions. This concept is laid out compellingly in “The Bioelectric Code: An Ancient Computational Medium for Dynamic Control of Growth and Form.” By investigating how cells use membrane potentials, gap junctions, and ion flows to coordinate complex anatomy, scientists are uncovering a powerful set of “software-like” rules—ones that might be as important as the genetic code in directing life’s architecture.
In this blog post, we will explore:
- How bioelectricity operates as an information-processing system, akin to a neural network or Bayesian inference engine.
- Why voltage patterns are “prepatterns” for organ development, guiding cells to form the correct shapes.
- How controlling these signals can override genetic mutations, suppress tumors, or induce entire organs outside their usual locations.
- The groundbreaking potential for regenerative medicine—one in which we “edit” bioelectric patterns to regrow limbs, correct birth defects, and even treat cancers.
- The philosophical and practical implications that lead us to see future physicians as “Bayesian mechanics” or “body electricians,” harnessing cell-level voltage to orchestrate healing.
By the end, you may agree that understanding and manipulating the bioelectric code could transform medicine as profoundly as the discovery of DNA did decades ago.
Historical Context: Beyond Genes and Biochemistry
We are taught in biology courses that DNA provides the blueprint for life, encoding the proteins that cells require. But as soon as we raise the question, “How do proteins translate into an entire 3D body plan?”, we run into challenges. DNA is essentially a linear code: it encodes the sequence of amino acids in proteins. Yet bodies are intricately 3D: heads, limbs, hearts, eyes, each in just the right position and proportion.
Classical embryologists of the early 20th century wrestled with these issues, noting that developmental processes often adapt to drastic interventions. Split an embryo at an early stage, and each half can still produce a normal or near-normal organism; artificially graft tissues from one region to another, and cells sometimes reorganize themselves into coherent structures anyway. These regenerative feats cannot be explained solely by feedforward genetic programs. Instead, scientists hypothesized that tissues maintain “positional information” and “target morphologies,” as if the body has an internal map telling cells where they stand relative to a larger plan.
An early clue came from the work of pioneers like H.S. Burr, Lionel Jaffe, and Harold Saxton Burr in the mid-20th century, who noted weak electric potentials across developing embryos. They proposed that these potentials might be essential to guiding cell arrangements. While overshadowed for decades by biochemistry and molecular genetics, this work is enjoying a renaissance. The dramatic reason: new molecular tools allow unprecedented control of ion channels, pumps, and gap junctions, making it possible to flip bioelectric “switches” that reorder tissues in astonishing ways.
The Core Idea: Bioelectricity as a Morphogenetic Code
At the heart of this perspective is the claim that membrane potentials and ion flow patterns carry actionable information about body layout—where an appendage should form, how big it should be, and even the type of organ that arises. Developmental biologist Michael Levin and colleagues have shown how small manipulations in these electrical patterns can produce profound morphological changes:
- Eyes Induced in the Gut: By misexpressing ion channels in the gut region of a developing frog, scientists have triggered the formation of fully structured eyes—complete with lens and retinal tissues—outside the head.
- Double-Headed Worms: In planarian flatworms, transiently blocking or altering gap junctions can force a worm fragment to regrow two heads, even though its genome remains completely wild-type. Furthermore, these changes can become stable “memories,” so that the worm continues to produce two heads in subsequent regenerations.
- Suppressing Tumors: Certain oncogenes that drive cancer can be neutralized by hyperpolarizing cells—i.e., returning them to a healthy electrical potential. This suggests that even if the genetic “switch” for cancer is flipped, the bioelectric state can override tumorigenesis.
Such experiments provide direct evidence that bioelectric signaling is not merely a housekeeping function, but carries instructions about the “correct” shape tissues should take. The synergy with genetics is intricate: genes encode which ion channels can be expressed and where, but the pattern of electrical potentials among connected cells emerges from these channels like a tapestry of voltage. This tapestry can then feed back on gene expression, forming a closed loop of control.
Cells as Bayesian Inference Machines
One of the most fascinating insights from this research is that cells act as Bayesian inference machines:
“A cell constantly collects signals—electrical, chemical, mechanical—and adjusts its internal states to fit a predictive model of how it should grow or function,”
— (Levin & Martyniuk, paraphrased)
In Bayesian terms, each cell has a set of “priors” (its existing state and membrane potential), sees new “evidence” (changes in voltage from neighbors, local chemical cues), and updates its “posterior belief” about what morphological tasks to accomplish. If the cell detects that the overall tissue voltage map says, “Form an eye in this region,” it differentiates accordingly—no single gene needs to be forcibly or exclusively responsible for that organ identity.
This dynamic viewpoint resonates with the Free Energy Principle from theoretical neuroscience (Karl Friston and colleagues). The principle posits that all living systems behave to minimize surprise or “free energy,” effectively performing Bayesian updates to remain in viable states. Bioelectric patterns can be seen as a global error-minimization field, guiding each cell to reduce the “distance” from the target morphological state—like a self-healing jigsaw puzzle. A limb or organ that is deformed attempts to restore the correct shape, as though the system knows how far it is from the “goal state” and must act to reduce the discrepancy.
Why Voltage Matters: Ion Channels, Pumps, and Gap Junctions
If cells are doing Bayesian inference, then bioelectricity is one of their chief communication media. Each cell maintains a resting membrane potential (Vmem) through the activity of:
- Ion Pumps (e.g., proton pumps, sodium-potassium pumps) that actively consume ATP to create ion gradients.
- Ion Channels that permit selective flows of charged particles like Na+, K+, Cl–.
- Gap Junctions that connect adjacent cells, allowing direct passage of ions and small molecules (essentially forming “electrical synapses”).
In neural contexts, we think of these flows as action potentials or graded potentials. But the same or related channels exist in non-neural cells, establishing tissue-level voltage patterns. In vertebrate development:
- Certain patches of cells may be hyperpolarized (more negatively charged) or depolarized (more neutral or positively charged).
- These patches can form stable or dynamic gradients. One region’s depolarization can prompt a cascade of signaling events—like shifting local gene transcription to produce an organ.
- Gap junction “networks” let large numbers of cells share electrical states, effectively coupling them into an integrated circuit.
The fact that any number of ion channels can produce the same net effect (a particular Vmem) underscores that voltage is the message, not necessarily which gene or which channel brand is used. Evolution has found multiple ways to arrive at similar voltage patterns, underscoring that the code is about the final electrophysiological state.
Bioelectricity vs. Genetic Expression
Over the past decades, the “genetic code” has proven extremely powerful in explaining how proteins are built. But there is no direct line from a gene to a 3D structure like a limb. Instead, the cell needs to interpret chemical gradients, mechanical forces, and electrical signals—this is the “morphogenetic code.”
Key Distinctions:
- The genetic code is linear: one region of DNA → one or more proteins.
- The bioelectric code is spatially distributed and continuously updated: local changes in voltage can ripple outward to unify or segment entire tissues.
- Genes are hardwired instructions in a sense, but bioelectric patterns can shift and reorganize on the fly, storing “memories” of shape that are neither pre-set nor purely ephemeral.
A spectacular example of this is the planarian flatworm:
- Planaria can regenerate an entire head if decapitated. If you artificially alter the gap junctions for just 24 hours, the worm looks normal afterward but is now in a stable state that regenerates two heads if cut again. The genome hasn’t changed, but the worm’s “target morphology” is now rewritten.
- Reversing the procedure can set them back to “normal.” These stable, rewritable states are reminiscent of attractors in computational models—once you shift the system to a new attractor, it “remembers” that new pattern.
In short, a purely genetic perspective struggles to explain how the same genome can produce drastically different final shapes, or how a shape can be changed permanently by an ephemeral bioelectric tweak. That is precisely why focusing on bioelectric circuits as a control layer opens new vistas.
Information Processing in Living Tissues
If we accept that tissues can store shape “memories,” then a natural analogy arises with neural networks. Brains store information about the external world in ensembles of firing neurons. Non-neural tissues, likewise, might store information about the “correct morphological form” in ensembles of voltage gradients and coupling patterns. Indeed:
- Developmental Bioelectricity can function similarly to artificial neural networks (ANNs) that settle into a stable solution after iterative updates. The “solution” is the right shape for a limb or organ.
- This perspective also helps to explain how an organism corrects morphological errors (like injuries): if the system is an attractor network, it tries to minimize morphological “error,” returning to the stored shape.
- Just as we can imprint or erase memories in neural circuits, so too we can imprint or erase morphological instructions in somatic tissues, as shown by experiments with planarians.
Importantly, this bridges embryology and cognition. Concepts from computational neuroscience, such as predictive coding and Bayesian inference, may illuminate how cells “figure out” whether a shape is correct or not. The synergy goes both ways: understanding how simpler tissues store morphological information may also yield insights into how the brain implements memory.
Implications for Regenerative Medicine
Limb and Organ Regrowth
The holy grail of regenerative medicine is to induce complex tissues—like an amputated limb—to regrow in humans. Current strategies often rely on stem cell implants, tissue scaffolds, or advanced prosthetics. But if we can decode how cells collectively “know” they’re building a limb, we could activate that program simply by creating the right bioelectric pattern. Levin’s group and others have already induced partial or complete limb structures in model organisms (like frogs) by artificially depolarizing or hyperpolarizing relevant tissues.
This has enormous potential: imagine applying a small molecule–based therapy that modulates ion channels in the stump of a lost limb, thereby prompting a self-organized regrowth. In principle, it’s simpler than engineering every cell type. The tissue already has the capacity for pattern formation; it just needs the correct bioelectric “go signal.”
Cancer Reversal
Another high-stakes scenario is cancer. Tumors often arise when cells lose contact-inhibition signals or respond aberrantly to growth cues. But a subset of experiments reveal that normalizing a cell’s membrane potential can revert it from a cancerous phenotype to normal, even when oncogenes remain active. This suggests an approach where, rather than trying to kill cancer cells with toxins or radiation, we might forcibly restore the electrical status that promotes normal growth.
Birth Defects and Developmental Anomalies
Many congenital defects involve mispatterned tissues—organs forming incorrectly or not at all. Because bioelectric states feed into major developmental gene pathways (like BMP, Notch, Hedgehog), artificially restoring the healthy voltage pattern might correct the defect, in principle. In fact, experiments in frog embryos have shown that certain Notch or Hox gene mutations can be bypassed by re-establishing the right bioelectric gradient to direct normal brain development.
Low-Intervention Healing
Compared to gene editing, which can have unpredictable off-target mutations, or major surgeries that physically reconstruct tissues, bioelectric approaches could be relatively non-invasive. In many cases, you might deliver small molecules (ion channel openers/closers) or even use optogenetics—light-activated channels—to gently “switch” target tissues into the correct electrical state.
Doctors as Future Bayesian Mechanics
The looming question is: who will wield these methods? In the 20th century, physicians predominantly worked with chemistry—prescribing drugs, managing hormones, addressing metabolic deficiencies. Over the last two decades, genomic medicine has arisen, with gene therapy trials and personalized medicine based on one’s genetic sequence.
The next era could see “body electricians” or “Bayesian mechanics,” who read and modulate the global voltage patterns in the body. They might:
- Use non-invasive imaging of tissue voltage states (akin to a high-resolution EEG, but for the entire body) to detect early signs of morphological stress (potential cancer or birth defect).
- Deliver targeted ion channel modulators or deploy light-based tools to re-hyperpolarize or depolarize the abnormal region.
- Monitor how the tissue’s electrical pattern reverts to a stable, healthy attractor, ensuring the final shape is correct.
They will blend knowledge of developmental bioelectricity (the fundamental flows that shape embryonic organs) with advanced computational theory, linking the Free Energy Principle or neural network models to real-time patient data. If all goes well, “electrical orthopedics” could, for instance, coax fractured bones to perfectly mend, or intervene in a degenerative disease by re-tuning the tissues’ electrical blueprint.
Challenges and Open Questions
Decoding the Code
While evidence is strong that bioelectric signals encode morphological instructions, the code itself remains partially mysterious. Which voltage patterns specify which organs? How does the system handle more complex, multi-organ processes?
- Genetic code was cracked by correlating specific codons with specific amino acids. Similarly, we need large-scale correlation data tying specific spatiotemporal voltage patterns to specific morphological outcomes.
Multiscale Complexity
The body is a multi-level hierarchy: molecules → cells → tissues → organs → entire organism. Bioelectric signals operate at cell-cell interfaces yet also influence gene expression within cells. Meanwhile, mechanical forces and chemical signals also matter. Integrating all these levels into a unified model is a substantial computational challenge.
Ethical and Safety Considerations
If simply toggling a set of ion channels can morph an organism’s shape, the potential for misuse or unforeseen consequences is clear. We must ensure that interventions are carefully validated and that partial or misguided manipulations do not lead to catastrophic malformations.
Variation Among Species
Some model organisms (like planarians) are particularly amenable to dramatic shape changes. Humans are more complex. Differences in channel expression, tissue organization, and immune responses complicate direct translation. We need robust human cell culture and organoid models to test the safety and reproducibility of bioelectric manipulations.
The Role of the Environment
If bioelectric circuits are adaptive, they might incorporate signals about the organism’s overall environment—nutrients, external electric or magnetic fields, or even cosmic rays. Could certain environmental disruptions cause subtle, harmful changes in bioelectric states? Conversely, might we harness environment-friendly strategies (like wearable emitters or specialized diets) to reinforce healthy morphostasis?
Case Studies
Optogenetic Limb Regeneration Attempts
Recent proof-of-concept experiments have used optogenetics (light-controlled ion channels) in tadpoles or fish to hyperpolarize or depolarize tissues. In some cases, even short bursts of light stimulation at the wound site were enough to evoke partial limb or tail outgrowth. The key is that once the bioelectric “set point” is established, the tissue self-organizes, often continuing regeneration after light stimulation ceases.
Synthetic Bioelectric Circuits in Tissue Engineering
Tissue engineers are also exploring “bioelectric scaffolds,” seeded with cells genetically engineered to express particular channels. By adjusting external voltages or administering channel-blocking drugs, they direct those cells to form structured tissues in vitro, from bone-like deposits to neural tissues with branching complexity. This opens the door to lab-grown organs shaped not only by 3D-printed scaffolds, but also by electrical patterning.
Wound Healing and Burn Treatment
Chronic wounds present a significant challenge in clinical medicine. Wounds disrupt the normal electrical gradient of skin, which influences how cells migrate and re-epithelialize. Preliminary trials of “electroceuticals”—gentle electrical currents or ion channel modulators—suggest faster wound closure and improved tissue alignment. The bioelectric approach offers a new angle: restoring the signal that tells skin cells how to reassemble neatly.
Critiques and Philosophical Dimensions
Even as the data grow, some skeptics argue that “bioelectric manipulations” might be an overhyped approach that simply triggers known biochemical cascades. From this vantage, the electricity is an intermediate, or an epiphenomenon, and genes plus classical morphogens remain the main event. However, the consistent demonstration that ephemeral voltage changes can permanently rewire morphological outcomes implies that something fundamental is happening at the level of electrical networks.
Another debate concerns the extent to which teleological language (“cells store a ‘goal state’ of correct shape”) should be allowed in biology. Historically, biology tried to avoid any suggestion of “purpose” in evolutionary processes. But control theory, cybernetics, and dynamical systems science all show that having an internal representation or model of a final state can be perfectly natural if the system is seeking a stable attractor that it can update. Thus, it’s not “vitalism,” but a legitimate explanation of how complex systems maintain robust patterns.
Finally, the idea that the body might be “computing” morphological solutions draws us into the realm of biosemiotics: signals, codes, and interpretation. Genes, proteins, bioelectric gradients, and epigenetic marks all belong to a multi-layer code system. The synergy between these codes is an ongoing frontier, reminiscent of how multiple layers of logic exist in computing systems (hardware, operating system, software, user interface).
Future Directions
In the next decade, we can expect a surge of interdisciplinary work:
- Deep Learning and the Bioelectric Code: Machine learning could help large datasets of in vivo voltage maps correlate with morphological outcomes, eventually decoding the “alphabet” and “syntax” of bioelectric language.
- Clinical Trials for Ion Channel Modulators: Trials in wound healing, organ regeneration, or tumor suppression that specifically target local membrane potentials.
- 3D Voltagrams: Non-invasive imaging modalities to visualize entire organ-level voltage patterns in real time, akin to 3D ECG for organs beyond the heart.
- Integration with Tissue Robotics: As bioengineers build advanced living robots (“xenobots”), they might find that controlling shape on the fly is easier through bioelectric commands than intricate genetic editing.
Ultimately, if the concept of “Bayesian inference machines” is correct, then tissues might do more than interpret local signals. They might gather system-wide signals and reason about the best morphological response to maintain viability. Mastering this cognitive aspect of tissues could open novel forms of therapy that we can’t yet imagine.
Conclusion: The Body Electric—Tomorrow’s Therapeutic Frontier
The trajectory from “genes are everything” to “genes are crucial but incomplete” illustrates how biology constantly evolves as new layers of complexity come to light. The bioelectric code is not a replacement for the genetic code but rather its essential partner—the dynamic, spatiotemporal language that ensures cells coordinate their actions into coherent forms and shapes.
Tomorrow’s doctor may indeed be a “Bayesian mechanic,” diagnosing subtle shifts in the patient’s body electric. Instead of only prescribing pharmaceuticals or surgically intervening, they might:
- Scan a region for abnormally depolarized or hyperpolarized patterns.
- Deliver small molecules or targeted light pulses to reset that region’s potential to a healthy standard.
- Monitor for morphological correction or regrowth, adjusting “electrical therapy” like a conductor guiding an orchestra of cells.
We stand on the brink of a revolutionary synthesis: Genes shape proteins, and those proteins underlie bioelectric networks, which in turn feed back on gene expression in a loop. By cracking this loop, we aim to unlock self-repairing tissues, indefinite regeneration, and targeted anti-cancer strategies, all more subtle and less destructive than current methods.
As we learn to speak this language of voltage, we will glimpse deeper truths about how life organizes itself, bridging embryology and cognition in ways previously unimaginable. The Bioelectric Code truly is an ancient and powerful computational medium—and understanding it may mark our next grand leap in medicine and biology.
Key Takeaways
- Bioelectric Code: A layer of control involving ion channels, pumps, and gap junctions that encodes where and how organs should form—potentially overriding genetic signals.
- Cells as Bayesian Inference Machines: They continually update a shared “map” or “prediction” of the correct body shape, in line with the Free Energy Principle.
- Voltage Patterns as Morphological Instructions: Experiments show we can induce or suppress organs, or form bizarre shapes (e.g. two-headed planarians) by tweaking membrane potentials.
- Implications for Regenerative Medicine: This approach may lead to new therapies for limb regrowth, birth defect correction, tumor suppression, and more—without altering the genome.
- Doctors as ‘Body Electricians’: In the future, clinicians may harness bioelectric signals to diagnose and fix subtle morphological errors, bridging neuroscience, developmental biology, and control theory.
References & Further Reading
- Levin, M., & Martyniuk, C.J. (2018). The Bioelectric Code: An Ancient Computational Medium for Dynamic Control of Growth and Form. BioSystems, 164, 76–93.
- Burr, H.S. (1944). The Fields of Life: Our Links with the Universe. Ballantine Books.
- Jaffe, L.F. (1979). Control of development by steady ionic currents. Federation Proceedings, 38(1), 60–67.
- Friston, K. (2013). Life as we know it. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 10(86), 20130475.
- Pai, V.P. et al. (2012). Transmembrane voltage potential controls embryonic eye patterning in Xenopus laevis. Development, 139(2), 313–323.
- Beane, W.S. et al. (2013). Bioelectric signaling regulates head and organ size during planarian regeneration. Development, 140, 313–322.
Closing Thoughts
The body electric is not just a poetic phrase or a niche idea. It may well be the next frontier in biomedical science—a place where quantum leaps in understanding how living tissues store, compute, and act upon information will yield breakthroughs that gene-focused approaches alone cannot. It is truly an exciting time to witness the emergence of bioelectric medicine—a field whose potential to improve lives is as vast as the signals that quietly shape us from embryo to adult.