Brooke, J.M., James, S.S. orcid.org/0000-0003-0208-0588, Jimenez-Rodriguez, A. et al. (1 more author) (2022) Biological action at a distance: correlated pattern formation in adjacent tessellation domains without communication. PLoS Computational Biology, 18 (3). e1009963. ISSN 1553-734X
Abstract
Tessellations emerge in many natural systems, and the constituent domains often contain regular patterns, raising the intriguing possibility that pattern formation within adjacent domains might be correlated by the geometry, without the direct exchange of information between parts comprising either domain. We confirm this paradoxical effect, by simulating pattern formation via reaction-diffusion in domains whose boundary shapes tessellate, and showing that correlations between adjacent patterns are strong compared to controls that self-organize in domains with equivalent sizes but unrelated shapes. The effect holds in systems with linear and non-linear diffusive terms, and for boundary shapes derived from regular and irregular tessellations. Based on the prediction that correlations between adjacent patterns should be bimodally distributed, we develop methods for testing whether a given set of domain boundaries constrained pattern formation within those domains. We then confirm such a prediction by analysing the development of ‘subbarrel’ patterns, which are thought to emerge via reaction-diffusion, and whose enclosing borders form a Voronoi tessellation on the surface of the rodent somatosensory cortex. In more general terms, this result demonstrates how causal links can be established between the dynamical processes through which biological patterns emerge and the constraints that shape them.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 Brooke et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
Keywords: | Communication; Diffusion; Somatosensory Cortex |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EUROPEAN COMMISSION - HORIZON 2020 945539 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 27 Apr 2022 15:10 |
Last Modified: | 27 Apr 2022 15:10 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009963 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:186061 |