Related papers: Excitable mechanics embodied in a walking cilium

Intermediate filaments form an essential structural network, spread throughout the cytoplasm and play a key role in cell mechanics, intracellular organization and molecular signaling. The maintenance of the network and its adaptation to the…

In order to keep their cohesiveness during locomotion gregarious animals must make collective decisions. Many species boast complex societies with multiple levels of communities. A common case is when two dominant levels exist, one…

Non-equilibrium processes which convert chemical energy into mechanical motion enable the motility of organisms. Bundles of inextensible filaments driven by energy transduction of molecular motors form essential components of micron-scale…

We study coupled transport in the nonequilibrium stationary state of a model consisting of independent random walkers, moving along a one-dimensional channel, which carry a conserved energy-like quantity, with density and temperature…

Cell crawling requires the generation of intracellular forces by the cytoskeleton and their transmission to an extracellular substrate through specific adhesion molecules. Crawling cells show many features of excitable systems, such as…

We successfully evolved a neural network controller that produces dynamic walking in a simulated bipedal robot with compliant actuators, a difficult control problem. The evolutionary evaluation uses a detailed software simulation of a…

In cells, cytoskeletal filament networks are responsible for cell movement, growth, and division. Filaments in the cytoskeleton are driven and organized by crosslinking molecular motors. In reconstituted cytoskeletal systems, motor activity…

We examine the dynamical evolution of the state of a neurone, with particular care to the non-equilibrium nature of the forces influencing its movement in state space. We combine non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and dynamical systems…

The initiation of directional cell motion requires symmetry breaking that can happen both with or without external stimuli. During cell crawling, forces generated by the cytoskeleton and their transmission through mechanosensitive adhesions…

Coordinated cilia are used throughout the natural world for micronscale fluid transport. They are often modelled with regular filament arrays on fixed, planar surfaces. Here, we simulate hundreds of interacting active filaments on spherical…

Eukaryotic cells are large enough to detect signals and then orient to them by differentiating the signal strength across the length and breadth of the cell. Amoebae, fibroblasts, neutrophils and growth cones all behave in this way. Little…

We introduce a model for translational molecular motors to demonstrate that a multivalent catalytic walker with flexible, uncoordinated legs can transform the free energy of surface-bound substrate sites into mechanical work and undergo…

Collective behavior in animals has long been modeled through self-propelled particle models, which reproduce striking group-level phenomena through abstract interaction forces. Yet these models are fundamentally descriptive: they leave open…

In equilibrium, the physical properties of matter are set by the interactions between the constituents. In contrast, the energy input of the individual components controls the behavior of synthetic or living active matter. Great progress…

Uncovering the mechanism behind the scaling law in human trajectories is of fundamental significance in understanding many spatio-temporal phenomena. In combination of the exploration and the preferential returns, we propose a simple…

Under-actuated compliant robotic systems offer a promising approach to mitigating actuation and control challenges by harnessing pre-designed, embodied dynamic behaviors. This paper presents Flix-Walker, a novel, untethered,…

Locomotion is essential for living cells. It enables bacteria and algae to explore space for food, cancer to spread, and immune system to fight infections. Motile cells display trajectories of intriguing complexity, from regular (e.g.…

Cyborg in the brain-machine interface field has attracted more attention in recent years. To control a creature via a machine called cyborg method, three stages are considerable: stimulation of neurons, neural response, and the behavioral…

Cells can show not only spontaneous movement but also tactic responses to environmental signals. Since the former can be regarded as the basis to realize the latter, playing essential roles in various cellular functions, it is important to…

Propelling microorganisms through fluids and moving fluids along cellular surfaces are essential biological functions accomplished by long, thin structures called motile cilia and flagella, whose regular, oscillatory beating breaks the…