The thalamic reticular (RE) nucleus is a major source of inhibition in the thalamus. It plays a crucial role in regulating the excitability of thalamocortical networks and in generating some sleep rhythms. Current-clamp intracellular recordings of RE neurons in cats under barbiturate anesthesia revealed the presence of membrane bistability in approximately 20% of neurons. Bistability consisted ...

Within an isogenic population, even in the same extracellular environment, individual cells can exhibit various phenotypic states. The exact role of stochastic gene-state switching regulating the transition among these phenotypic states in a single cell is not fully understood, especially in the presence of positive feedback. Recent high-precision single-cell measurements showed that, at least ...

Previous research has suggested that highly hypnotisable participants ('highs') are more sensitive to the bistability of ambiguous figures-as evidenced by reporting more perspective changes of a Necker cube-than low hypnotisable participants ('lows'). This finding has been interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that highs have more efficient sustained attentional abilities than lows. However,...

We analyze the optical bistability and the entanglement of two movable mirrors coupled to a two-mode laser in a doubly resonant cavity. We show that in stark contrast to the usual red-detuned condition for observing bistability in single-mode optomechanics, the optical intensities exhibit bistability for all values of cavity laser detuning due to intermode coupling induced by two-photon atomic ...

We provide a self-consistent mean field approximation in the framework of Mie scattering theory to study the optical bistability of a metallic nanoparticle coated with a nonlinear shell. We demonstrate that the nanoparticle coated with a weakly nonlinear shell exhibits optical bistability in a broad range of incident optical intensity. This optical bistability critically relies on the geometry ...

Micro RNAs (miRNAs) serve as crucial post-transcriptional regulators in a variety of essential cell fate decisions. However, the contribution of mRNA-miRNA mutual regulation to bistability is not fully understood. In the present study, we built a set of mathematical models of mRNA-miRNA interactions and systematically analyzed the sensitivity of the response curves under various conditions. Our...

Purkinje neurons are central to cerebellar function and show membrane bistability when recorded in vitro or in vivo under anesthesia. The existence of bistability in vivo in awake animals is disputed. Here, by recording intracellularly from Purkinje neurons in unanesthetized larval zebrafish (Danio rerio), we unequivocally demonstrate bistability in these neurons. Tonic firing was seen in depol...

In this work we investigate multistability in the lac operon of Escherichia coli when it is induced by a mixture of lactose and the non-metabolizable thiomethyl galactoside (TMG). In accordance with previously published experimental results and computer simulations, our simulations predict that: (1) when the system is induced by TMG, the system shows a discernible bistable behavior while, (2) w...

Single-molecule magnets display magnetic bistability of molecular origin, which may one day be exploited in magnetic data storage devices. Recently it was realised that increasing the magnetic moment of polynuclear molecules does not automatically lead to a substantial increase in magnetic bistability. Attention has thus increasingly focussed on ions with large magnetic anisotropies, especially...

Bistability underlies cellular memory and maintains alternative differentiation states. Bistability can emerge only if its parameter range is either physically realizable or can be enlarged to become realizable. We derived a general rule and showed that the bistable range of a reaction parameter is maximized by a pair of other parameters in any gene regulatory network provided they satisfy a ge...