Related papers: Encoding Mechano-Memories in Actin Networks
While most chemical bonds weaken under the action of mechanical force (called slip bond behavior), nature has developed bonds that do the opposite: their lifetime increases as force is applied. While such catch bonds have been studied quite…
Sensors are the first element of the pathways that control the response of cells to their environment. After chemical, the next most important cue is mechanical, and protein complexes that produce or enable a chemical signal in response to…
The mechanical performance of reinforced composites is strongly influenced at different scales by the stress transferred at the matrix-fibre interfaces and at any surface where material discontinuity occurs. In particular, the mechanical…
Living organisms can demonstrate highly adaptable and sophisticated responses using memory resulting from repeated exposure to external conditions or training. However, realizing similar adaptability in mechanical responses in inanimate,…
The mechanical properties of polymer gels based on cytoskeleton proteins (e.g. actin) have been studied extensively due to their significant role in biological cell motility and in maintaining the cell's structural integrity. Microrheology…
It is well known that many biochemical processes in the cell such as gene regulation, growth signals and activation of ion channels, rely on mechanical stimuli. However, the mechanism by which mechanical signals propagate through cells is…
Associative memory has been a prominent candidate for the computation performed by the massively recurrent neocortical networks. Attractor networks implementing associative memory have offered mechanistic explanation for many cognitive…
Living soft tissues appear to promote the development and maintenance of a preferred mechanical state within a defined tolerance around a so-called set-point. This phenomenon is often referred to as mechanical homeostasis. In contradiction…
Interacting many-body physical systems ranging from neural networks in the brain to folding proteins to self-modifying electrical circuits can learn to perform diverse tasks. This learning, both in nature and in engineered systems, can…
We have developed a new extended replica exchange method to study thermodynamics of a system in the presence of external force. Our idea is based on the exchange between different force replicas to accelerate the equilibrium process. We…
Dynamically crosslinked semiflexible biopolymers such as the actin cytoskeleton govern the mechanical behavior of living cells. Semiflexible biopolymers nonlinearly stiffen in response to mechanical loads, whereas the crosslinker dynamics…
Actin is a key component of the cytoskeleton, which plays central roles in cell motility, division, growth, and tensile strength. To enable this wide range of transient mechanical processes and properties, networks of actin filaments…
The macromechanical properties of purely bundled in vitro actin networks are not only determined by the micromechanical properties of individual bundles but also by molecular unbinding events of the actin binding protein (ABP) fascin. Under…
Mechanical metamaterials composed of bistable elements have recently emerged as promising platforms for mechanical memory. Traditional approaches to writing information in these systems typically rely on localized actuation or predefined…
A large number of studies have shown the existence of metabolic covalent modifications in different molecular structures, able to store biochemical information that is not encoded by the DNA. Some of these covalent mark patterns can be…
The composite cytoskeleton, comprising interacting networks of semiflexible actin and rigid microtubules, actively generates forces and restructures using motor proteins such as myosins to enable key mechanical processes including cell…
Motor adaptation displays a structure-learning effect: adaptation to a new perturbation occurs more quickly when the subject has prior exposure to perturbations with related structure. Although this `learning-to-learn' effect is well…
Dynamic analysis of structures subjected to earthquake excitation is a time-consuming process, particularly in the case of extremely small time step required, or in the presence of high geometric and material nonlinearity. Performing…
Actin and spectrin are important constituents of axonal cytoskeleton. Periodic actin and spectrin structures are found in dendrites, initial segment of axon, and main axon. Actin and spectrin periodicity has been hypothesized to be…
Force transmission at large length scales is crucial for such biological functions as cell motility and morphogenesis. The networks that transmit these forces are malleable, patterned by active forces generated at the microscale by…