Related papers: Encoding Mechano-Memories in Actin Networks

The actin cytoskeleton is a key component in the machinery of eukaryotic cells, and it selfassembles out of equilibrium into a wide variety of biologically crucial structures. While the molecular mechanisms involved are well characterized,…

The mechanical properties of the cell depend crucially on the tension of its cytoskeleton, a biopolymer network that is put under stress by active motor proteins. While the fibrous nature of the network is known to strongly affect the…

Pattern formation and the mechanics of a mixture of actin filaments and myosin motors that is confined by a rigid membrane is investigated. By using a coarse-grained molecular dynamics model, we demonstrate that the competition between the…

Understanding how molecular machines transduce mechanical force into chemical signals is a central goal in chemistry. The mechanosensitive ion channel Piezo1 is an archetypal nanoscale mechanotransducer, but the molecular principles by…

We introduce a mathematical model for the mechanical behaviour of the eukaryotic cell cytoskeleton. This discrete model involves a regular array of pre-stressed protein filaments that exhibit resistance to enthalpic stretching, joined at…

Many biological processes involve the action of molecular motors that interact with the cell cytoskeleton. Some processes, such as the transport of cargoes is achieved mainly by the action of individual motors. Other, such as cell motility…

Disordered solids often change their elastic response as they slowly age. Using experiments and simulations, we study how aging disordered planar networks under an applied stress affects their nonlinear elastic response. We are able to…

Biological forces govern essential cellular and molecular processes in all living organisms. Many cellular forces, e.g. those generated in cyclic conformational changes of biological machines, have repetitive components. However, little is…

Reduced blood flow, as occurring in ischemia or resulting from exposure to microgravity such as encountered in space flights, induces a decrease in the level of shear stress sensed by the endothelial cells forming the inner part of blood…

Contractile forces are essential for many developmental processes involving cell shape change and tissue deformation. Recent experiments on reconstituted actomyosin networks, the major component of the contractile machinery, have shown that…

Metastructured auxetic patches, characterized by negative Poisson's ratios, offer unique mechanical properties that closely resemble the behavior of human tissues and organs. As a result, these patches have gained significant attention for…

Associative memory, a form of content-addressable memory, facilitates information storage and retrieval in many biological and physical systems. In statistical mechanics models, associative memory at equilibrium is represented through…

To make progress in understanding the issue of memory loss and history dependence in evolving complex systems, we consider the mixing rate that specifies how fast the future states become independent of the initial condition. We propose a…

We show experimentally that both single and multiple mechanical memories can be encoded in an amorphous bubble raft, a prototypical soft glass, subject to an oscillatory strain. In line with recent numerical results, we find that multiple…

The mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling cascade, an evolutionarily conserved motif present in all eukaryotic cells, is involved in coordinating critical cell-fate decisions, regulating protein synthesis, and mediating learning…

Deformation heterogeneities within microstructures of polycrystalline shape memory alloys (SMAs) during superelastic stressing are studied using both experiments and simulations. In situ X-ray diffraction, specifically the far-field high…

Actin filaments, crosslinkers and myosin molecular motors form contractile networks. For instance, the cell cortex is a thin network below the cell membrane ; contraction of the cell cortex allows cells to round up during cell division.…

Directional memory in amorphous solids is commonly quantified through the Bauschinger effect, yet the observation of the inverse Bauschinger effect suggests that the sign of memory can invert, pointing to distinct underlying plastic…

We show that memory can be encoded in a model amorphous solid subjected to athermal oscillatory shear deformations, and in an analogous spin model with disordered interactions, sharing the feature of a deformable energy landscape. When…

Physical systems exhibiting neuromechanical functions promise to enable structures with directly encoded autonomy and intelligence. We report on a class of neuromorphic metamaterials embodying bioinspired mechanosensing, memory, and…