Modelling the Dynamics of Biological Systems

1. Front Matter

   Pages I-XII

   PDF

2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Erik Mosekilde, Ole G. Mouritsen

      Pages 1-3

3. Pattern Formation in Chemical Systems

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 5-5

      PDF

   2. Spiral Waves in Bounded Excitable Media

      • S. C. Müller, A. Warda, V. S. Zykov

      Pages 7-22

   3. Dynamics of Oscillatory Chemical Systems

      • Igor Schreiber, Miloš Marek

      Pages 23-47

   4. Localized Turing and Turing-Hopf Patterns

      • P. Borckmans, O. Jensen, V. O. Pannbacker, E. Mosekilde, G. Dewel, A. De Wit

      Pages 48-73

4. Biological Patterns

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 75-75

      PDF

   2. Domains and Patterns in Biological Membranes

      • Ole G. Mouritsen, Kent Jørgensen, John Hjort Ipsen, M. M. Sperotto

      Pages 77-100

   3. Modelling Pattern Formation on Primate Visual Cortex

      • J. R. Thomson, Wm Cowan, K. R. Elder, Ph. Daviet, G. Soga, Z. Zhang et al.

      Pages 101-127

5. Dynamics of Biological Macromolecules

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 129-129

      PDF

   2. Channel Function and Channel-Lipid Bilayer Interactions

      • Olaf S. Andersen, Jens A. Lundbæk, Jeffrey Girshman

      Pages 131-155

   3. Dynamics of Nucleic Acids and Nucleic Acid:Protein Complexes

      • Lennart Nilsson

      Pages 156-164

6. Physiological Control Systems

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 165-165

      PDF

   2. Models of Renal Blood Flow Autoregulation

      • N.-H. Holstein-Rathlou, K. H. Chon, D. J. Marsh, V. Z. Marmarelis

      Pages 167-185

   3. Dynamics of Bone Remodelling

      • Li. Mosekilde, J. S. Thomsen, E. Mosekilde

      Pages 186-204

   4. Modelling Heart Rate Variability Due to Respiration and Baroreflex

      • Henrik Seidel, Hanspeter Herzel

      Pages 205-229

   5. A Dynamical Approach to Normal and Parkinsonian Tremor

      • Anne Beuter, Anne de Geoffroy

      Pages 230-248

7. Complex Ecologies and Evolution

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 249-249

      PDF

   2. Dynamics of Complex Ecologies

      • Jacqueline M. McGlade

      Pages 251-268

   3. A Self-Organized Critical Model for Evolution

      • H. Flyvbjerg, P. Bak, M. H. Jensen, K. Sneppen

      Pages 269-288

The development of a proper description of the living world today stands as one of the most significant challenges to physics. A variety of new experimental techniques in molecular biology, microbiol­ ogy, physiology and other fields of biological research constantly expand our knowledge and enable us to make increasingly more detailed functional and structural descriptions. Over the past decades, the amount and complexity of available information have multiplied dramatically, while at the same time our basic understanding of the nature of regulation, behavior, morphogenesis and evolution in the living world has made only modest progress. A key obstacle is clearly the proper handling of the available data. This requires a stronger emphasis on mathematical modeling through which the consistency of the adopted explanations can be checked, and general princi­ ples may be extracted. As an even more serious problem, however, it appears that the proper physical concepts for the development of a theoretically oriented biology have not hitherto been available. Classical mechanics and equilibrium thermody­ namics, for instance, are inappropriate and useless in some of the most essen­ tial biological contexts. Fortunately, there is now convincing evidence that the concepts and methods of the newly developed fields of nonlinear dynam­ ics and complex systems theory, combined with irreversible thermodynamics and far-from-equilibrium statistical mechanics will enable us to move ahead with many of these problems.

• complex system
• living systems
• mathematics
• mechanics
• statistical mechanics
• thermodynamics

• Physics Department, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark

  Erik Mosekilde

• Department of Physical Chemistry, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark

  Ole G. Mouritsen

Policies and ethics