Related papers: How does an embedded spheroid affect the rigidity …
We recast the problem of hydrogel swelling under physical constraints as an energy optimization problem. We apply this approach to compute equilibrium shapes of hydrogel spheres confined within a jammed matrix of rigid beads, and interpret…
Soft living tissues like cartilage can be considered as biphasic materials comprised of a fibrous complex biopolymer network and a viscous background liquid. Here, we show by a combination of experiment and theoretical analysis that both…
Adhesive cell-substrate interactions are crucial for cell motility and are responsible for the necessary traction that propels cells. These interactions can also change the shape of the cell, analogous to liquid droplet wetting on adhesive…
Understanding how biological constraints shape neural computation is a central goal of computational neuroscience. Spatially embedded recurrent neural networks provide a promising avenue to study how modelled constraints shape the combined…
Biological cells sense and respond to mechanical forces, but how such a mechanosensing proccess takes place in a nonlinear inhomogeneous fibrous matrix remains unknown. We show that cells in a fibrous matrix induce deformation fields that…
Key to collective cell migration is the ability of cells to rearrange their position with respect to their neighbors. Recent theory and experiments demonstrated that cellular rearrangements are facilitated by cell shape, with cells having…
Motivated by recent experiments showing nonlinear elasticity of in vitro networks of the biopolymer actin cross-linked with filamin, we present an effective medium theory of flexibly cross-linked stiff polymer networks. We model such…
We investigate wrinkling of two-dimensional random and triangular semiflexible polymer networks under shear. Both types of semiflexible networks exhibit wrinkling above a small critical shear angle, which scales with an exponent of the…
Embedding rigid inclusions into elastic matrix materials is a procedure of high practical relevance, for instance for the fabrication of elastic composite materials. We theoretically analyze the following situation. Rigid spherical…
The morphology of spherically confined flexoelectric fluid membrane vesicles in an external uniform electric field is studied numerically. Due to the deformations induced by the confinement, the membrane becomes polarized resulting in an…
Motivated to understand the behavior of biological filaments interacting with membranes of various types, we study a theoretical model for the shape and thermodynamics of intrinsically-helical filaments bound to curved membranes. We show…
Cell migration plays a fundamental role in numerous physiological processes, including embryonic development, wound healing, and cancer metastasis. While cell-cell adhesion is known to regulate motion by shaping cell morphology and…
We extend the continuum theory of active nematic fluids to study cell flows and tissue dynamics inside multicellular spheroids, spherical, self-assembled aggregates of cells that are widely used as model systems to study tumour dynamics.…
The production of mechanical stresses in living organisms largely relies on localized, force-generating active units embedded in filamentous matrices. Numerical simulations of discrete fiber networks with fixed boundaries have shown that…
The magnitude of traction forces exerted by living animal cells on their environment is a monotonically increasing and approximately sigmoidal function of the stiffness of the external medium. This observation is rationalized using active…
In biological systems, the growth of cells, tissues, and organs is influenced by mechanical cues. Locally, cell growth leads to a mechanically heterogeneous environment as cells pull and push their neighbors in a cell network. Despite this…
Using a mean field approach and simulation, we study the non-linear mechanical response of the vertex model (VM) of biological tissue under compression and dilation. The VM is known to exhibit a transition between rigid and fluid-like, or…
Cellular adaptation to environmental changes relies on the dynamic remodeling of subcellular structures. Among these, sarcomere structures are fundamental to the organization and function of the cytoskeletal architecture. In muscle-type…
Reinforced elastic sheets surround us in daily life, from concrete shell buildings to biological structures such as the arthropod exoskeleton or the venation network of dicotyledonous plant leaves. Natural structures are often highly…
Understanding the mechanics of brain embryogenesis can provide insights on pathologies related to brain development, such as lissencephaly, a genetic disease which cause a reduction of the number of cerebral sulci. Recent experiments on…