Related papers: Physarum polycephalum: Smart network adaptation

What do societies, the Internet, and the human brain have in common? They are all examples of complex relational systems, whose emerging behaviours are largely determined by the non-trivial networks of interactions among their constituents,…

Understanding how the brain learns to compute functions reliably, efficiently and robustly with noisy spiking activity is a fundamental challenge in neuroscience. Most sensory and motor tasks can be described as dynamical systems and could…

Continuous adaptation allows survival in an ever-changing world. Adjustments in the synaptic coupling strength between neurons are essential for this capability, setting us apart from simpler, hard-wired organisms. How these changes can be…

We describe the dynamics of a simple adaptive network. The network architecture evolves to a number of disconnected components on which the dynamics is characterized by the possibility of differently synchronized nodes within the same…

As you read these words you are using a complex biological neural network. You have a highly interconnected set of some neurons to facilitate your reading, breathing, motion and thinking. Each of your biological neurons, a rich assembly of…

A common trait of complex systems is that they can be represented by means of a network of interacting parts. It is, in fact, the network organisation (more than the parts) what largely conditions most higher-level properties, which are not…

The evolution of multicellular organisms from monocellular ancestors represents one of the greatest advances of the history of life. The assembly of such multicellular organisms requires signalling and response between cells: over millions…

Biological neural networks are characterized by their high degree of plasticity, a core property that enables the remarkable adaptability of natural organisms. Importantly, this ability affects both the synaptic strength and the topology of…

Many foraging microorganisms rely upon cellular transport networks to deliver nutrients, fluid and organelles between different parts of the organism. Networked organisms ranging from filamentous fungi to slime molds demonstrate a…

Over the last two decades, network science has greatly advanced our understanding of how the collective behaviors of a complex system emerge from the interactions among its basic units. Multiplex networks, i.e. networks with many layers,…

Current theories suggest that adaptive decision-making necessitates the interaction between multiple decision-making systems. The computational definitions of different models of decision-making suggest interactions with task demands and…

We construct electronic oscillator from acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum. The slime mould oscillator is made of two electrodes connected by a protoplasmic tube of the living slime mould. A protoplasmic tube has an average…

Many studies have shown that Physarum polycephalum slime mold is able to find the shortest path in a maze. In this paper we study this behavior in a network, using a hyperbolic model of chemotaxis. Suitable transmission and boundary…

Myxococcus xanthus is a unicellular organism whose cells possess the ability to move and communicate, leading to the emergence of complex collective properties and behaviours. This has made it an ideal model system to study the emergence of…

The relation between network structure and dynamics is determinant for the behavior of complex systems in numerous domains. An important long-standing problem concerns the properties of the networks that optimize the dynamics with respect…

Living organisms rely on molecular networks, such as gene circuits and signaling pathways, for information processing and robust decision-making in crowded, noisy environments. Recent advances show that interacting biomolecules…

Living beings are able to solve a wide variety of problems that they encounter rarely or only once. Without the benefit of extensive and repeated experience with these problems, they can solve them in an ad-hoc manner. We call this capacity…

Biological tissues exhibit complex behaviors with their dynamics often resembling inert soft matter such as liquids, polymers, colloids, and liquid crystals. These analogies enable physics-based approaches for investigations of emergent…

This work concerns a many-body deterministic model that displays life-like properties as emergence, complexity, self-organization, spontaneous compartmentalization, and self-regulation. The model portraits the dynamics of an ensemble of…

Most complex networks serve as conduits for various dynamical processes, ranging from mass transfer by chemical reactions in the cell to packet transfer on the Internet. We collected data on the time dependent activity of five natural and…