Biomedical subjects

Pablo Padilla-Longoria

Publications and source records attributed to Pablo Padilla-Longoria.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2025

New insights into multistability and complex resonances driven by subthreshold periodic signals in a neuronal model.

Understanding how neurons respond to weak external signals is crucial for accurate signal transmission and processing in both individual nerve cells and interconnected neuronal networks. One mechanism for the detection of these responses is through resonances. In this paper, we numerically investigate the firing patterns induced in a silent Huber-Braun neuron by a sinusoidal external force. We observe complex resonance patterns, including a sequence of frequency-locking exhibited in a Devil's Staircase structure. Furthermore, we also explore the emergence of multistability induced by the nonlinear resonance. This multistability manifests as the coexistence of three attractors, such as periodic spiking, chaotic spiking, and subthreshold oscillations. The dynamical behaviors are comprehensively analyzed using time series, bifurcation diagrams, phase portraits, and the basin of attraction. In addition, we compute the maximum Lyapunov exponent to verify chaotic regimes, and estimate the fractal dimension of basin boundaries using the uncertainty exponent. We also analyze the energy consumption of resonance-induced firing patterns and coexisting attractors. The results presented in this paper have important implications for understanding the detection of subthreshold signals and the encoding of stimulus information within a neuron's firing patterns.

Basins of attraction↗

PubMed2006

Gene regulatory network models for plant development.

Accumulated genetic data are stimulating the use of mathematical and computational tools for studying the concerted action of genes during cell differentiation and morphogenetic processes. At the same time, network theory has flourished, enabling analyses of complex systems that have multiple elements and interactions. Reverse engineering methods that use genomic data or detailed experiments on gene interactions have been used to propose gene network architectures. Experiments on gene interactions incorporate enough detail for relatively small developmental modules and thus allow dynamical analyses that have direct functional interpretations. Generalities are beginning to emerge. For example, biological genetic networks are robust to environmental and genetic perturbations. Such dynamical studies also enable novel predictions that can lead to further experimental tests, which might then feedback to the theoretical analyses. This interplay is proving productive for understanding plant development. Finally, both experiments on gene interactions and theoretical analyses allow the identification of frequent or fixed evolutionary solutions to developmental problems, and thus are contributing to an understanding of the genetic basis of the evolution of development and body plan.

Biological Evolution↗

PubMed2004

A gene regulatory network model for cell-fate determination during Arabidopsis thaliana flower development that is robust and recovers experimental gene expression profiles.

Flowers are icons in developmental studies of complex structures. The vast majority of 250,000 angiosperm plant species have flowers with a conserved organ plan bearing sepals, petals, stamens, and carpels in the center. The combinatorial model for the activity of the so-called ABC homeotic floral genes has guided extensive experimental studies in Arabidopsis thaliana and many other plant species. However, a mechanistic and dynamical explanation for the ABC model and prevalence among flowering plants is lacking. Here, we put forward a simple discrete model that postulates logical rules that formally summarize published ABC and non-ABC gene interaction data for Arabidopsis floral organ cell fate determination and integrates this data into a dynamic network model. This model shows that all possible initial conditions converge to few steady gene activity states that match gene expression profiles observed experimentally in primordial floral organ cells of wild-type and mutant plants. Therefore, the network proposed here provides a dynamical explanation for the ABC model and shows that precise signaling pathways are not required to restrain cell types to those found in Arabidopsis, but these are rather determined by the overall gene network dynamics. Furthermore, we performed robustness analyses that clearly show that the cell types recovered depend on the network architecture rather than on specific values of the model's gene interaction parameters. These results support the hypothesis that such a network constitutes a developmental module, and hence provide a possible explanation for the overall conservation of the ABC model and overall floral plan among angiosperms. In addition, we have been able to predict the effects of differences in network architecture between Arabidopsis and Petunia hybrida.

Arabidopsis↗