Related papers: Cellular function given parametric variation: exci…
The threshold voltage for action potential generation is a key regulator of neuronal signal transduction, yet the mechanism of its dynamic variation is still not well described. In this paper, we propose that threshold phenomena can be…
The present habilitation thesis in theoretical biological physics addresses two central dynamical processes in cells and organisms: (i) active motility and motility control and (ii) self-organized pattern formation. The unifying theme is…
The generation of spikes by neurons is energetically a costly process and the evaluation of the metabolic energy required to maintain the signalling activity of neurons a challenge of practical interest. Neuron models are frequently used to…
Phosphorelays are a class of signaling mechanisms used by cells to respond to changes in their environment. Phosphorelays (of which two-component systems constitute a special case) are particularly abundant in prokaryotes and have been…
Modeling and simulating how oxygen supply shapes neuronal excitability is crucial for advancing the understanding of brain function in pathological scenarios, such as ischemia. This condition is caused by a reduced blood supply, leading to…
Communication between cells is realized by exchange of biochemical substances. Due to internal organization of living systems and variability of external parameters, the exchange is heavily influenced by perturbations of various parameters…
Neuronal excitability is the phenomena that describes action potential generation due to a stimulus input. Commonly, neuronal excitability is divided into two classes: Type I and Type II, both having different properties that affect…
Recent experimental investigations into Hydra regeneration revealed a remarkable phenomenon: the morphological transformation of a tissue fragment from the incipient spherical configuration to a tube-like structure - the hallmark of a…
Cellular behavior is governed by gene regulatory processes that are intrinsically dynamic and nonlinear, and are subject to non-negligible amounts of random fluctuations. Such conditions are ubiquitous in physical systems, where they have…
Synchronization is an important collective phenomenon in interacting oscillatory agents. Many functional features of the brain are related to synchronization of neurons. The type of synchronization transition that may occur (explosive vs.…
Microbial growth and division are fundamental processes relevant to many areas of life science. Of particular interest are homeostasis mechanisms, which buffer growth and division from accumulating fluctuations over multiple cycles. These…
Reduced models of neuronal activity such as Integrate-and-Fire models allow a description of neuronal dynamics in simple, intuitive terms and are easy to simulate numerically. We present a method to fit an Integrate-and-Fire-type model of…
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.…
Many organisms have an elastic skeleton that consists of a closed shell of epithelial cells that is filled with fluid, and can actively regulate both elastic forces in the shell and hydrostatic pressure inside it. In this work we introduce…
Chemically active systems such as living cells are maintained out of thermal equilibrium due to chemical events which generate heat and lead to active fluctuations. A key question is to understand on which time and length scales active…
Comprehending the nature of action potentials is fundamental to our understanding of the functioning of nervous systems in general. Here we consider their evolution and describe their functions of communication, modulation and computation…
A variety of physical, social and biological systems generate complex fluctuations with correlations across multiple time scales. In physiologic systems, these long-range correlations are altered with disease and aging. Such correlated…
We reconsider the problem of the stability of the thermohaline circulation as described by a two-dimensional Boussinesq model with mixed boundary conditions. We determine how the stability properties of the system depend on the intensity of…
Inspired by recent experiments on the dynamics of particles and polymers in artificial cytoskeletons and in cells, we introduce a modified Langevin equation for a particle in an environment that is a viscoelastic medium and that is brought…
The motility of a fish keratocyte on a flat substrate exhibits two distinct regimes: the non-migrating and the migrating one. In both configurations the shape is fixed in time and, when the cell is moving, the velocity is constant in…