Related papers: Critical transitions in pancreatic islets
Phase transitions are emergent phenomena where microscopic interactions drive a disordered system into a collectively ordered phase. Near the boundary between two phases, the system can exhibit critical, scale-invariant behavior. Here, we…
Pancreatic beta cells are coupled excitable oscillators that synchronize their activity via different communication pathways. Their oscillatory activity manifests itself on multiple timescales and consists of bursting electrical activity,…
Much progress has been made in elucidating the inner workings of voltage-gated ion channels, but less understood is the influence of lipid rafts on gating kinetics. Here we propose that state-dependent channel affinity for different lipid…
We have recorded the swarming-like collective migration of a large number of keratocytes (tissue cells obtained from the scales of goldfish) using long-term videomicroscopy. By increasing the overall density of the migrating cells, we have…
We explore nonadiabatic quantum phase transitions in an Ising spin chain with a linearly time-dependent transverse field and two different spins per unit cell. Such a spin system passes through critical points with gapless excitations,…
By constructing an exactly solvable spin model, we investigate the critical behaviors of transverse field Ising chains interpolated with cluster interactions, which exhibit various types of topologically distinct Ising critical points.…
Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a challenging metabolic disorder characterized by a substantial loss of $\beta$-cell mass and alteration of $\beta$-cell function in the islets of Langerhans, disrupting insulin secretion and glucose homeostasis.…
Liquid-liquid phase separation has recently emerged as an important topic in the context of cellular organization. Within this context, there are multiple poorly understood features; for instance hints of critical behavior in the plasma…
We study a recent model for calcium signal transduction. This model displays spiking, bursting and chaotic oscillations in accordance with experimental results. We calculate bifurcation diagrams and study the bursting behaviour in detail.…
We present a simple biophysical model for the coupling between synaptic transmission and the local calcium concentration on an enveloping astrocytic domain. This interaction enables the astrocyte to modulate the information flow from…
Bursting is a periodic transition between a quiescent state and a state of repetitive spiking. The phenomenon is ubiquitous in a variety of neurophysical systems. We numerically study the dynamical properties of a normal form of subcritical…
Interacting many-particle systems can self-organize into a rich variety of crystalline structures. While symmetry provides a powerful framework for predicting whether transitions between crystal states are continuous or discontinuous,…
Understanding how neurons coordinate their activity is a fundamental question in neuroscience, with implications for learning, memory, and neurological disorders. Calcium imaging has emerged as a powerful method to observe large-scale…
The collective behavior of numerous animal species, including insects, exhibits scale-free behavior indicative of the critical (second-order) phase transition. Previous research uncovered such phenomena in the behavior of honeybees, most…
A quasi one--dimensional system of trapped, repulsively interacting atoms (e.g., an ion chain) exhibits a structural phase transition from a linear chain to a zigzag structure, tuned by reducing the transverse trap potential or increasing…
A lattice model of three-state stochastic phase-coupled oscillators has been shown by Wood et al (2006 Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 145701) to exhibit a phase transition at a critical value of the coupling parameter, leading to stable global…
We study the nature of quantum phase transitions out of $\mathbb{Z}_4$ ordered phases in quantum loop models on a zig-zag ladder. We report very rich critical behavior that includes a pair of Ising transitions, a multi-critical…
Counter-regulatory elements maintain dynamic equilibrium ubiquitously in living systems. The most prominent example, which is critical to mammalian survival, is that of pancreatic {\alpha} and {\beta} cells producing glucagon and insulin…
Within the micro-canonical ensemble phase transitions of first order can be identified without invoking the thermodynamic limit. We show for the liquid-gas transition of sodium, potassium, and iron at normal pressure that the transition…
Crystals of repulsively interacting ions in planar traps form hexagonal lattices, which undergo a buckling instability towards a multi-layer structure as the transverse trap frequency is reduced. Numerical and experimental results indicate…