Biological Information Cascades
Information cascades are not limited to technology or social networks, they occur in nature as well. For example, in order for cells to make decisions such as if they should divide, where they should divide, or where they should migrate, cells must receive signals from the environment to make these decisions. However, in order for the cells to utilize these signals, the cells must transfer the signal from the cell surface to the nucleus. The process by which the cells transfer the signal has not been fully determined yet, but the article below discusses how researches how found one model that works. The original belief the researchers had was that the signal transfer would be modeled by a closed loop feedback system, since it needs to transmit what the signal is and the magnitude of the signal. However, it was found that a closed loop feedback system that not model the signal transmission, instead what did work was a push-pull control mechanism.
This article connects to the information cascades we discussed in class as well as the two state model with low and high signals. In essence, the way the cells transfer the signals from the outside world can be modeled with two states and low high signals. For example, in the push-pull control mechanism, the protein’s “inactive” form can be modeled as a low signal, whereas the active form can be modeled as a high signal. However, the actual states of the model would depend on what the researchers actually desire to model and the factors that affect the cell’s decision such as whether it has previously divided, if migration has occured already, etc. Information casscades are not limited to within the cell though, they also occur in the structure as a whole because the signals from the environment also involve other cells. As such for the structure as a whole, it could be modeled as each cell is a person and the nth cell has its own signal and knows the signals of the previous cells combined.
https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/center-news/2016/10/cells-sense-respond-outside-world.html