Related papers: Understanding cytoskeletal avalanches using mechan…
Synchrony is inevitable in many oscillating systems -- from the canonical alignment of two ticking grandfather clocks, to the mutual entrainment of beating flagella or spiking neurons. Yet both biological and manmade systems provide…
Recently, mechanical tests on ice as well as dislocation dynamics simulations have revealed that plastic flow displays a scale-free intermittent dynamics characterized by dislocation avalanches with a power law distribution of amplitudes.…
The spatial localization or sequestering of motile cargo and their dispersal within cells is an important process in a number of physiological contexts. The morphology of the cytoskeletal network, along which active, motor-driven…
Organisms often use cyclic changes in the concentrations of chemicals species to precisely time biological functions. Underlying these biochemical clocks are chemical reactions and transport processes, which are inherently stochastic.…
The structural reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton is facilitated through the action of motor proteins that crosslink the actin filaments and transport them relative to each other. Here, we present a combined experimental-computational…
Mechanics and biochemical signaling are both often deregulated in cancer, leading to cancer cell phenotypes that exhibit increased invasiveness, proliferation, and survival. The dynamics and interactions of cytoskeletal components control…
Materials are often heterogeneous at various length scales, with variations in grain structure, defects, and composition which has a strong influence on the emergent macroscopic plastic behavior. In particular, heterogeneities lead to…
Actin is one of the most studied cytoskeleton proteins showing a very rich span of structures. It can self-assemble actively into dynamical structures that govern the mechanical properties of the cell, its motility and its division.…
Cells accomplish diverse functions using the same molecular building blocks, from setting up cytoplasmic flows to generating mechanical forces. In particular, transitions between these non-equilibrium states are triggered by regulating the…
Developing tissues need to pattern themselves in space and time. A prevalent mechanism to achieve this are pulsatile active stresses generated by the actin cytoskeleton. Active gel theory is a powerful tool to model the dynamics of…
We introduce a novel tool for analyzing complex network dynamics, allowing for cascades of causally-related events, which we call causal webs (c-webs), to be separated from other non-causally-related events. This tool shows that…
Plastic deformation in amorphous solids is carried by localized shear transformations that self-organize into avalanches. In amorphous carbon modeled with a machine-learned interatomic potential, we find that the energetics and organization…
In this work, we report the preliminary analysis of the electrophysiological behavior of in vitro neuronal networks to identify when the networks are in a critical state based on the size distribution of network-wide avalanches of activity.…
The cellular cytoskeleton is an active material, driven out of equilibrium by molecular motor proteins. It is not understood how the collective behaviors of cytoskeletal networks emerge from the properties of the network's constituent motor…
Vascular networks play a key role in the development, function, and survival of many organisms, facilitating transport of nutrients and other critical factors within and between systems. The development of these vessel networks has been…
The actin and microtubule cytoskeletons are vital structures for cell growth and development across all species. While individual molecular mechanisms underpinning actin and microtubule dynamics have been intensively studied, principles…
Using numerical simulations, we examine the dynamics of active matter run-and-tumble disks moving in a disordered array of obstacles. As a function of increasing active disk density and activity, we find a transition from a completely…
Understanding how biomechanical reorganization governs key biological processes, such as morphogenesis and development, requires predictive insights into stress distributions and cellular behavior. While traditional approaches focused on…
The cytoskeleton is an active composite of filamentous proteins that dictates diverse mechanical properties and processes in eukaryotic cells by generating forces and autonomously restructuring itself. Enzymatic motors that act on the…
The dynamics of flow within a material transport network is dependent upon the dynamics of its power source. Responding to a change of these dynamics is critical for the fitness of living flow networks, e.g. the animal vasculature, which…