Related papers: Nerves and Anesthesia: A physics perspective on me…
Molecular transport maintains cellular structures and functions. For example, lipid and protein diffusion sculpts the dynamic shapes and structures on the cell membrane that perform essential cellular functions, such as cell signaling.…
Elastic confinements are an important component of many biological systems and dictate the transport properties of suspended particles under flow. In this chapter, we review the Brownian motion of a particle moving in the vicinity of a…
We investigate the properties of membranes under tension by Monte-Carlo simulations of a generic coarse-grained model for lipid bilayers. We give a comprising overview of the behavior of several membrane characteristics, such as the area…
We present a theory for the interaction between active particles and a passive flexible membrane. By explicitly solving for the pressure exerted by the active particles, we show that they reduce the membrane tension and bending modulus and…
Using numerical simulations, we characterized the behavior of an elastic membrane immersed in an active fluid. Our findings reveal a nontrivial folding and re-expansion of the membrane that is controlled by the interplay of its resistance…
Whether live cell membranes show miscibility phase transitions (MPTs), and if so, how they fluctuate near the transitions remain outstanding unresolved issues in physics and biology alike. Motivated by these questions we construct a generic…
Differences in magnetic susceptibility between various compartments in heterogeneous samples can introduce unanticipated complications to NMR spectra. On the other hand, an understanding of these effects at the level of the underlying…
Tension in lipid membranes is often controlled externally, by pulling on the boundary of the membrane or changing osmotic pressure across a curved membrane. But modifications of the tension can also be induced in an internal fashion, for…
In comparative and developmental neuroanatomy one encounters questions regarding the deformation of neural tissue under stress. The motivation of this note is an observation (Barbas {\it et al}) that at cortical folds or gyri, the layers of…
The initiation of directional cell motion requires symmetry breaking that can happen both with or without external stimuli. During cell crawling, forces generated by the cytoskeleton and their transmission through mechanosensitive adhesions…
In this paper mathematical models are formulated in order to simulate heat production and corresponding temperature changes which accompany the propagation of an axon potential. Based on earlier experimental results, several models are…
The existence and propagation of acoustic pressure pulses on lipid monolayers at the air/water-interfaces are directly observed by simple mechanical detection. The pulses are excited by small amounts of solvents added to the monolayer from…
In this article the one-dimensional, overdamped motion of a classical particle is considered, which is coupled to a thermal bath and is drifting in a quenched disorder potential. The mobility of the particle is examined as a function of…
With the rapid advent of biomedical and biotechnological innovations, a deep understanding of the nature of interaction between nanomaterials and cell membranes, tissues, and organs, has become increasingly important. Active penetration of…
Synaptic plasticity, the dynamic tuning of signal transmission strength between neurons, serves as a fundamental basis for memory and learning in biological organisms. This adaptive nature of synapses is considered one of the key features…
Metastasis is a process of cell migration that can be collective and guided by chemical cues. Viewing metastasis in this way, as a physical phenomenon, allows one to draw upon insights from other studies of collective sensing and migration…
Interaction of electric fields with biological cells is indispensable for many physiological processes. Thermal electrical noise in the cellular environment has long been considered as the minimum threshold for detection of electrical…
In this work, we propose and study the stability of nerve impulse propagation as electrical and mechanical signals through linear approximation. We present a potential energy stored in the biomembrane due to the deformation, bending, and…
I put forward a continuum theory for active nematic gels, defined as fluids or suspensions of orientable rodlike objects endowed with active dynamics, that is based on symmetry arguments and compatibility with thermodynamics. The starting…
The thermodynamic (TD) properties of biological membranes play a central role for living systems. It has been suggested, for instance, that nonlinear pulses such as action potentials (APs) can only exist if the membrane state is in vicinity…