Related papers: Memory improves precision of cell sensing in fluct…
Cells generally change their internal state to adapt to an environmental change, and accordingly evolve in response to the new conditions. This process involves phenotypic changes that occur over several different time scales, ranging from…
Cells sense external concentrations and, via biochemical signaling, respond by regulating the expression of target proteins. Both in signaling networks and gene regulation there are two main mechanisms by which the concentration can be…
Memory is a complex phenomenon that involves several distinct mechanisms. These mechanisms operate at different spatial and temporal levels. This chapter focuses on the theoretical framework and the mathematical models that have been…
Collective oscillation of cells in a population has been reported under diverse biological contexts and with vastly different molecular constructs. Could there be common principles similar to those that govern spontaneous oscillation in…
Biological populations are subject to fluctuating environmental conditions. Different adaptive strategies can allow them to cope with these fluctuations: specialization to one particular environmental condition, adoption of a generalist…
We consider nonequilibrium transport in a simple chain of identical mechanical cells in which particles move around. In each cell, there is a rotating disc, with which these particles interact, and this is the only interaction in the model.…
Feedback in sensory biochemical networks can give rise to bifurcations in cells' behavioral response. These bifurcations share many properties with thermodynamic critical points. Evidence suggests that biological systems may operate near…
In chemotaxis, cells are modulating their migration patterns in response to concentration gradients of a guiding substance. Immune cells are believed to use such chemotactic sensing for remotely detecting and homing in on pathogens.…
Many active systems display nematic order, while interacting with their environment. In this work, we show theoretically how environment-stored memory acts an effective external field that aligns active nematics. The coupling to the…
Memory effects are ubiquitous in nature and are particularly relevant at the nanoscale where the dynamical properties of electrons and ions strongly depend on the history of the system, at least within certain time scales. We review here…
Cells perform directed motion in response to external stimuli that they detect by sensing the environment with their membrane protrusions. In particular, several biochemical and biophysical cues give rise to tactic migration in the…
In this paper, we analyze the electrotactic movement of Dictyostelium discoideum from the viewpoint of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. Because we can observe fluctuating behavior of cellular trajectories, we analyze the probability…
Bacterial chemotaxis is controlled by the conformational changes of the receptors, in response to the change of the ambient chemical concentration. In a statistical mechanical approach, the signalling due to the conformational changes is a…
High resolution optical microscopy is essential in neuroscience but suffers from scattering in biological tissues. It therefore grants access to superficial layers only. Recently developed techniques use scattered photons for imaging by…
In this exploratory paper we introduce the problem of cognitive agents that learn how to modify their environment according to local sensing to reach a global goal. We concentrate on discrete dynamics (cellular automata) on a…
Many cellular processes involve information processing and decision making. We can probe these processes at increasing molecular detail. The analysis of heterogeneous data remains a challenge that requires new ways of thinking about cells…
Bacteria are easily characterizable model organisms with an impressively complicated set of capabilities. Among their capabilities is quorum sensing, a detailed cell-cell signaling system that may have a common origin with eukaryotic…
Organisms that grow and survive in uncertain environments may need to change their physiological state as the environment changes. When the environment is uncertain, one strategy known as bet-hedging is to make these changes randomly and…
Living cells use readout molecules to record the state of receptor proteins, similar to measurements or copies in typical computational devices. But is this analogy rigorous? Can cells be optimally efficient, and if not, why? We show that,…
Microorganisms like bacteria can sense concentration of chemo-attractants in its medium very accurately. They achieve this through interaction between the receptors on their cell surface and the chemo-attractant molecules (like sugar). But…