Related papers: Mechanical oscillations at the cellular scale
A number of biological processes, such as embryo development, cancer metastasis or wound healing, rely on cells moving in concert. The mechanisms leading to the emergence of coordinated motion remain however largely unexplored. Although…
We investigate the possibility that narrowband oscillations may emerge from completely asynchronous, independent neural firing. We find that a population of asynchronous neurons may produce narrowband oscillations if each neuron fires…
Oscillations are omnipresent in neural population signals, like multi-unit recordings, EEG/MEG, and the local field potential. They have been linked to the population firing rate of neurons, with individual neurons firing in a…
The spontaneous emergence of contraction-inducing electrical activity in the uterus at the beginning of labor remains poorly understood, partly due to the seemingly contradictory observation that isolated uterine cells are not spontaneously…
Peristalsis by actively generated waves of muscle contraction is one of the most fundamental ways of producing motion in living systems. We show that peristalsis can be modeled by a train of rectangular-shaped solitary waves of localized…
We present sufficient conditions for the existence of forced oscillations in non-autonomous mechanical systems. Previously, similar results were obtained for systems with friction. Presented results hold both for systems with and without…
The cells and tissues that make up our body juggle contradictory mechanical demands. It is crucial for their survival to be able to withstand large mechanical loads, but it is equally crucial for them to produce forces and actively change…
The living cell expends energetic and material resources to reliably process information from its environment. To do so, it utilises unreliable molecular circuitry that is subject to thermal and other fluctuations. Here, we argue that…
Collective cell migration is a key driver of embryonic development, wound healing, and some types of cancer invasion. Here we provide a physical perspective of the mechanisms underlying collective cell migration. We begin with a catalogue…
The sensitivity and frequency selectivity of hearing result from tuned amplification by an active process in the mechanoreceptive hair cells. In most vertebrates the active process stems from the active motility of hair bundles. The…
Orbital resonances are ubiquitous in the Solar system. They play a decisive role in the long term dynamics, and in some cases the physical evolution, of the planets and of their natural satellites, as well as the evolution of small bodies…
Neural oscillations are universal phenomena and can be observed at different levels of neural systems, from single neuron to macroscopic brain. The frequency of those oscillations are related to the brain functions. However, little is know…
We use a computational phase-field model together with analytical analysis to study how inter-cellular active forces can mediate individual cell morphology and collective motion in a confluent cell monolayer. Contractile inter-cellular…
A cell is polarised when it has developed a main axis of organisation through the reorganisation of its cytosqueleton and its intracellular organelles. Polarisation can occur spontaneously or be triggered by external signals, like gradients…
The understanding of morphogenesis in living organisms has been renewed by tremendous progressin experimental techniques that provide access to cell-scale, quantitative information both on theshapes of cells within tissues and on the genes…
Oscillatory biochemical signals and mechanical forces must coordinate robustly during development, yet the principles governing their mutual coupling remain poorly understood. In syncytial embryos and cell-free extracts, mitotic waves…
Cilia and flagella are hairlike organelles that propel cells through fluid. The active motion of the axoneme, the motile structure inside cilia and flagella, is powered by molecular motors of the dynein family. These motors generate forces…
Cell signaling, gene expression, and metabolism are affected by cell-cell heterogeneity and random changes in the environment. The effects of such fluctuations on cell signaling and gene expression have recently been studied intensively…
A wide range of organisms use circadian clocks to keep internal sense of daily time and regulate their behavior accordingly. Most of these clocks use intracellular genetic networks based on positive and negative regulatory elements. The…
We use the oscillating Min proteins of Escherichia coli as a prototype system to illustrate the current state and potential of modeling protein dynamics in space and time. We demonstrate how a theoretical approach has led to striking new…