Related papers: Pulsatory patterns in active viscoelastic fluids w…
Mechanochemical patterns arising in the actomyosin cortex drive many cellular processes. Here we consider a hydrodynamic model for the actomyosin cortex of cells and study the sensitivity of the emergent patterns to both physical parameters…
It is well known that periodic potentials can be used to induce freezing and melting in colloids. Here, we transfer this concept to active systems and find the emergence of a so-far unknown active matter phase in between the frozen…
The mechanics of cells is strongly affected by molecular motors that generate forces in the cellular cytoskeleton. We develop a model for cytoskeletal networks driven out of equilibrium by molecular motors exerting transient contractile…
We consider a continuum model of active viscoelastic matter, whereby an active nematic liquid-crystal is coupled to a minimal model of polymer dynamics with a viscoelastic relaxation time $\tau_C$. To explore the resulting interplay between…
Via molecular dynamics simulations, we study the kinetics in a phase separating active matter model. Quantitative results for the isotropic bicontinuous pattern formation, its growth and aging, studied, respectively, via the two-point…
Active matter systems such as eukaryotic cells and bacteria continuously transform chemical energy to motion. Hence living systems exert active stresses on the complex environments in which they reside. One recurring aspect of this…
Using agent-based simulations of self-propelled particles subject to short-range repulsion and nematic alignment we explore the dynamical phases of a dense active material confined to the surface of a sphere. We map the dynamical phase…
The experimental use of micropatterned quasi-1D substrates has emerged as an useful experimental tool to study the nature of cell-cell interactions and gain insight on collective behaviour of cell colonies. Inspired by these experiments, we…
Here we show that coupling to curvature has profound effects on collective motion in active systems, leading to patterns not observed in flat space. Biological examples of such active motion in curved environments are numerous: curvature…
Cortical actin networks are highly dynamic and play critical roles in shaping the mechanical properties of cells. The actin cytoskeleton undergoes significant reorganization over the course of the cell cycle, when cortical actin transitions…
We propose a class of microstructurally informed models for the linear elastic mechanical behavior of cross-linked polymer networks such as the actin cytoskeleton. Salient features of the models include the possibility to represent…
We propose and analyse the properties of a new class of models for the electromechanics of cardiac tissue. The set of governing equations consists of nonlinear elasticity using a viscoelastic and orthotropic exponential constitutive law…
Spatiotemporal patterns are common in biological systems. For electrically-coupled cells previous studies of pattern formation have mainly used external forcing as the main bifurcation parameter. The purpose of this paper is to show that…
Active matter consists of units that generate mechanical work by consuming energy. Examples include living systems, such as assemblies of bacteria and biological tissues, biopolymers driven by molecular motors, and suspensions of synthetic…
Our fluid dynamics video shows the response of a layer of viscoelastic fluid to an array of four-roll mills steadily rotating underneath. When the relaxation time of the fluid is sufficiently long, the fluid divides into "cells" with a…
Motivated by the formation of ring-like filament structures in the cortex of plant and animal cells, we study the dynamics of a two-dimensional layer of cytoskeletal filaments and motor proteins near a surface by a general continuum theory.…
The normal modes and relaxation rates of weak colloidal gels are investigated in computations employing different models of the hydrodynamic interactions between colloids. The eigenspectrum is computed for freely draining,…
A long standing puzzle in the rheology of living cells is the origin of the experimentally observed long time stress relaxation. The mechanics of the cell is largely dictated by the cytoskeleton, which is a biopolymer network consisting of…
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…
We investigated the actuation performances of anisotropic gels driven by mechanical and chemical stimuli, in terms of both deformation processes and stroke--curves, and distinguished between the fast response of gels before diffusion starts…