Impulse-Based Dynamic Simulation of Deformable Biological Structures

We present a new impulse-based method, called the Tethered Particle System (TPS), for the dynamic simulation of deformable biological structures. The TPS is unusual in that it may capture a gradual process of deformation using only instantaneous impulses that occur in response to particle collisions. This paper describes the method and its application to synaptic vesicle clusters and deformable biological membranes. Unlike many alternative methods, which require solutions to systems of equations or inequalities, the calculations in a TPS simulation are all analytic. The TPS also alleviates the need to choose regular time intervals appropriate for biological entities that may differ in size by orders of magnitude. The method is promising for simulations of smallscale self-assembling deformable biological structures exhibiting random motion.