IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v6y2015i1d10.1038_ncomms8468.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The limits of chemosensation vary across dimensions

Author

Listed:
  • Brendan A. Bicknell

    (Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland
    School of Mathematics and Physics, The University of Queensland)

  • Peter Dayan

    (Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, University College London)

  • Geoffrey J. Goodhill

    (Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland
    School of Mathematics and Physics, The University of Queensland)

Abstract

Many biological processes rely on the ability of cells to measure local ligand concentration. However, such measurements are constrained by noise arising from diffusion and the stochastic nature of receptor–ligand interactions. It is thus critical to understand how accurately, in principle, concentration measurements can be made. Previous theoretical work has mostly investigated this in 3D under the simplifying assumption of an unbounded domain of diffusion, but many biological problems involve 2D concentration measurement in bounded domains, for which diffusion behaves quite differently. Here we present a theory of the precision of chemosensation that covers bounded domains of any dimensionality. We find that the quality of chemosensation in lower dimensions is controlled by domain size, suggesting a general principle applicable to many biological systems. Applying the theory to biological problems in 2D shows that diffusion-limited signalling is an efficient mechanism on time scales consistent with behaviour.

Suggested Citation

  • Brendan A. Bicknell & Peter Dayan & Geoffrey J. Goodhill, 2015. "The limits of chemosensation vary across dimensions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 1-8, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms8468
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms8468
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8468
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms8468?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms8468. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.