Related papers: Patterning the insect eye: from stochastic to dete…

We study a stochastic individual-based model of interacting plant and pollinator species through a bipartite graph: each species is a node of the graph, an edge representing interactions between a pair of species. The dynamics of the system…

The frog model starts with one active particle at the root of a graph and some number of dormant particles at all nonroot vertices. Active particles follow independent random paths, waking all inactive particles they encounter. We prove…

A substantial amount of time and energy has been invested to develop machine vision using connectionist (neural network) principles. Most of that work has been inspired by theories advanced by neuroscientists and behaviorists for how…

Recent experiments have exploited elastic instabilities in membranes to create complex patterns. However, the rational design of such structures poses many challenges, as they are products of nonlinear elastic behavior. We pose a simple…

A Markovian lattice model for photoreceptor cells is introduced to describe the growth of mosaic patterns on fish retina. The radial stripe pattern observed in wild-type zebrafish is shown to be selected naturally during the retina growth,…

Many biological systems approach physical limits to their performance, motivating the idea that their behavior and underlying mechanisms could be determined by such optimality. Nevertheless, optimization as a predictive principle has only…

Biomolecular networks have to perform their functions robustly. A robust function may have preferences in the topological structures of the underlying network. We carried out an exhaustive computational analysis on network topologies in…

From falcons spotting preys to humans recognizing faces, rapid visual abilities depend on a foveated retinal organization which delivers high-acuity central vision while preserving low-resolution periphery. This organization is conserved…

Multicellular tissues are the building blocks of many biological systems and organs. These tissues are not static, but dynamically change over time. Even if the overall structure remains the same there is a turnover of cells within the…

Stochastic neural networks are a prototypical computational device able to build a probabilistic representation of an ensemble of external stimuli. Building on the relationship between inference and learning, we derive a synaptic plasticity…

With respect to biological findings underlying fly's physiology in the past decade, we present a directionally selective neural network, with a feed-forward structure and entirely low-level visual processing, so as to implement direction…

The problem of pattern formation in a generic two species reaction--diffusion model is studied, under the hypothesis that only one species can diffuse. For such a system, the classical Turing instability cannot take place. At variance, by…

Like a rocket being propelled into space, evolution has engineered flies to launch into adulthood via multiple stages. Flies develop and deploy two distinct bodies, linked by the transformative process of metamorphosis. The fly larva is a…

The proper functioning of multicellular organisms requires the robust establishment of precise proportions between distinct cell-types. This developmental differentiation process typically involves intracellular regulatory and stochastic…

Hayashi and Carthew (Nature 431 [2004], 647) have shown that the packing of cone cells in the Drosophila retina resembles soap bubble packing, and that changing E- and N-cadherin expression can change this packing, as well as cell shape.…

We introduce a stochastic agent-based model for the flocking dynamics of self-propelled particles that exhibit velocity-alignment interactions with neighbours within their field of view. The stochasticity in the dynamics of the model arises…

In this paper we propose the Hatching-Box, a novel imaging and analysis system to automatically monitor and quantify the developmental behavior of Drosophila in standard rearing vials and during regular rearing routines, rendering explicit…

Rhythmic and sequential segmentation of the embryonic body plan is a vital developmental patterning process in all vertebrate species. However, a theoretical framework capturing the emergence of dynamic patterns of gene expression from the…

Regulatory networks consist of interacting molecules with a high degree of mutual chemical specificity. How can these molecules evolve when their function depends on maintenance of interactions with cognate partners and simultaneous…

Numerous cell-types have shown a remarkable ability to detect and move along gradients in stiffness of an underlying substrate -- a process known as durotaxis. The mechanisms underlying durotaxis are still unresolved, but generally believed…