Related papers: Decision-making in light-trapped slime molds invol…
Transitions between solid-like and fluid-like states in living tissues have been found in steps of embryonic development and in stages of disease progression. Our current understanding of these transitions has been guided by experimental…
In this paper we propose a generalized model for the motion of a two-species self-driven objects ranging from a scenario of a completely random environment of particles of negligible excluded volume to a more deterministic regime of rigid…
Humans and other organisms make decisions choosing between different options, with the aim to maximize the reward and minimize the cost. The main theoretical framework for modeling the decision-making process has been based on the highly…
Minimalistic robot swarms offer a scalable, robust, and cost-effective approach to performing complex tasks with the potential to transform applications in healthcare, disaster response, and environmental monitoring. However, coordinating…
We study the dynamics of an ideal polymer chain in a crowded, viscoelastic medium and in the presence of active forces. The motion of the centre of mass and of individual monomers is calculated. On time scales that are comparable to the…
Plasmodium of acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum is a very large eukaryotic microbe visible to the unaided eye. During its foraging behaviour the plasmodium spans sources of nutrients with a network of protoplasmic tubes. In this…
Depinning transitions occur when a threshold force must be applied to drive an otherwise immobile system. For the depinning of colloidal particles from a corrugated landscape, we show how active noise due to self-propulsion impacts the…
Recent experiments suggest that the interplay between cells and the mechanics of their substrate gives rise to a diversity of morphological and migrational behaviors. Here, we develop a Cellular Potts Model of polarizing cells on a…
Plasmodium of acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum exhibits traits of wave-like behaviour. The plasmodium's behaviour can be finely tuned in laboratory experiments by using herbal tablets. A single tablet acts as a fixed attractor:…
Social insects are ecologically and evolutionarily most successful organisms on earth, which can achieve robust collective behaviors through local interactions among group members. Colony migration has been considered as a leading example…
Living organisms process information to interact and adapt to their changing environment with the goal of finding food, mates or averting hazards. The structure of their niche has profound repercussions by both selecting their internal…
While the collective motion of active particles has been studied extensively, effective strategies to navigate particle swarms without external guidance remain elusive. We introduce a method to control the trajectories of two-dimensional…
The motion of active polymers in a porous medium is shown to depend critically on flexibilty, activity and degree of polymerization. For given Peclet number, we observe a transition from localisation to diffusion as the stiffness of the…
Rapid transduction of sensory stimulation to action is essential for an animal to survive. To this end, most animals use the sub-second excitable and multistable dynamics of a neuromuscular system. Here, studying an animal without neurons…
We study how simple eukaryotic organisms make decisions in response to competing stimuli in the context of phototaxis by the unicellular alga $Chlamydomonas~reinhardtii$. While negatively phototactic cells swim directly away from a…
In a growing number of strongly disordered and dense systems, the dynamics of a particle pulled by an external force field exhibits super-diffusion. In the context of glass forming systems, super cooled glasses and contamination spreading…
We study the flow behavior and unjamming transition in dense assemblies of actively deforming particles that periodically change size, a process that we refer to as breathing. Using extensive molecular dynamics simulations and a…
Biological tissues exhibit diverse mechanical and rheological behaviors during morphogenesis. While much is known about tissue phase transitions controlled by structural order and cell mechanics, key questions regarding how tissue-scale…
Observations of single epidermal cells on flat adhesive substrates have revealed two distinct morphological and functional states, namely a non-migrating symmetric unpolarized state and a migrating asymmetric polarized state. These states…
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…