Related papers: Mitochondrial mechanics nucleates axonal jamming a…
Within cells, vesicles and proteins are actively transported several micrometers along the cytoskeletal filaments. The transport along microtubules is propelled by dynein and kinesin motors, which carry the cargo in opposite directions.…
Active gels are a class of biologically-relevant material containing embedded agents that spontaneously generate forces acting on a sparse filament network. In vitro experiments of protein filaments and molecular motors have revealed a…
For plasma velocity space instabilities driven by particle distributions significantly deviated from a Maxwellian, weak collisions can damp the instabilities by an amount that is significantly beyond the collisional rate itself. This is…
We study charge and energy transfer in two-site molecular electronic junctions in which electron transport is assisted by a vibrational mode. To understand the role of mode harmonicity/anharmonicity on transport behavior, we consider two…
Empirical and numerical microscopic features of moving traffic jams are presented. Based on a single vehicle data analysis, it is found that within wide moving jams, i.e., between the upstream and downstream jam fronts there is a complex…
Many critical biological processes, like wound healing, require confluent cell monolayers/bulk tissues to transition from a jammed solid-like to a fluid-like state. Although numerical studies anticipate changes in the cell shape alone can…
The effect of mechanical interactions between cells in the spreading of bacterial populations was investigated in one-dimensional space. A continuum-mechanics approach, comprising cell migration, proliferation, and exclusion processes, was…
The development and time evolution of a transport barrier in a magnetically confined plasma with non-monotonic, nonlinear dependence of the anomalous flux on mean gradients is analyzed. Upon consideration of both the spatial inhomogeneity…
Recent investigations of traumatic brain injuries have shown that these injuries can result in conformational changes at the level of individual neurons in the cerebral cortex. Focal axonal swelling is one consequence of such injuries and…
We investigate both experimentally and theoretically the traffic of particles flowing in microfluidic obstacle networks. We show that the traffic dynamics is a non-linear process: the particle current does not scale with the particle…
Many living and artificial systems show a similar emergent behavior and collective motions on different scales, starting from swarms of bacteria to synthetic active particles, herds of mammals and crowds of people. What all these systems…
In cells, cytoskeletal filament networks are responsible for cell movement, growth, and division. Filaments in the cytoskeleton are driven and organized by crosslinking molecular motors. In reconstituted cytoskeletal systems, motor activity…
Motor-proteins are responsible for transport inside cells. Harnessing their activity is key towards developing new nano-technologies, or functional biomaterials. Cytoskeleton-like networks, recently tailored in vitro, result from the…
We model the elasticity of the cerebral cortex as a layered material with bending energy along the layers and elastic energy between them in both planar and polar geometries. The cortex is also subjected to axons pulling from the underlying…
We extend a recently proposed model (Chaudhuri et al., EPL 87, 20003 (2009)) aiming to describe the formation of fascicles of axons during neural development. The growing axons are represented as paths of interacting directed random walkers…
Eukaryotic cells and intracellular pathogens such as bacteria or viruses utilize the actin polymerization machinery to propel themselves forward. Thereby, the onset of motion and choice of direction may be the result of a spontaneous…
Transport properties of particles in confining geometries show very specific characteristics as lateral drift, oscillatory movement between lateral walls or the deformation of flexible fibers. These dynamics result from viscous friction…
Axonal growth and the formation of synaptic connections are key steps in the development of the nervous system. Here we present experimental and theoretical results on axonal growth and interconnectivity in order to elucidate some of the…
The connection between friction and jamming in granular media, molecular glasses, and complex fluids is explored. The paper first reviews the way friction is measured, the types of results that are observed, and what is known about the…
It is shown that the desire for smooth and comfortable driving is directly responsible for the occurrence of complex spatio-temporal structures (``synchronized traffic'') in highway traffic. This desire goes beyond the avoidance of…