Degeneracy and complexity in biological systems

Edelman, Gerald M.; Gally, Joseph A.

doi:10.1073/pnas.231499798

Cited by 1,217 publications

(1,100 citation statements)

References 47 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

1,062

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Possibly, consciousness is a case of degeneracy, as discussed by Edelman and Gally (2001). Possibly, consciousness is caused by many interacting mechanisms, each in itself or in interaction with other mechanisms sufficient to create consciousness.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Solving this problem is closely connected with the notoriously difficult problem of solving the classical consciousness problem. Edelman and Gally (2001) have argued that one of the signatures of biological function is the phenomenon of degeneracy or functional redundance, the phenomenon that completely different mechanisms lead to the same functional result. Edelman and Gally present an impressive array of examples, the noneffect of eliminating the albumine gene being one of the most convincing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Mechanisms of Anesthesia: Towards Integrating Network, Cellular, and Molecular Level Modeling

Århem

Klement

Nilsson

2003

Neuropsychopharmacol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The mechanisms of anesthesia are surprisingly little understood. The present article summarizes current knowledge about the function of general anesthetics at different organization levels of the nervous system. It argues that a consensus view can be constructed, assuming that general anesthetics modulate the activity of ion channels, the main targets being GABA and NMDA channels and possibly voltagegated and background channels, thereby hyperpolarizing neurons in thalamocortical loops, which lead to disruption of coherent oscillatory activity in the cortex. Two computational cases are used to illustrate the possible importance of molecular level effects on cellular level activity. Subtle differences in the mechanism of ion channel block can be shown to cause considerable differences in the modification of the oscillatory activity in a single neuron, and consequently in an associated network. Finally, the relation between the anesthesia problem and the classical consciousness problem is discussed, and some consequences of introducing the phenomenon of degeneracy into the picture are pointed out.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mechanisms of Anesthesia: Towards Integrating Network, Cellular, and Molecular Level Modeling

Århem

Klement

Nilsson

2003

Neuropsychopharmacol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Theoretically, then, measures such as GIE provide an indication of how effectively degeneracy is exploited in managing system stability (e.g., such as to avoid falling during a climbing activity) [3,11].…”

Section: Responsementioning

confidence: 99%

Constraints representing a meta-stable régime facilitate exploration during practice and transfer of learning in a complex multi-articular task

Orth

Davids

Seifert

2018

Human Movement Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…The IS approach is consistent with the concept of functional degeneracy, i.e., "the ability of elements that are structurally different to perform the same function or yield the same output" (Edelman and Gally, 2001), or more plainly, "there are multiple ways of completing the same task" . The IS approach certainly considers inter-subject variability but may not integrate group data tightly enough to enable correct inferences about statistically significant differences between groups.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Dynamic Bayesian network modeling of fMRI: A comparison of group-analysis methods

Wang

Palmer

et al. 2008

NeuroImage

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Bayesian network (BN) modeling has recently been introduced as a tool for determining the dependencies between brain regions from functional-magnetic-resonance-imaging (fMRI) data. However, studies to date have yet to explore the optimum way for meaningfully combining individually determined BN models to make group inferences. We contrasted the results from three broad approaches: the "virtual-typical-subject" (VTS) approach which pools or averages group data as if they are sampled from a single, hypothetical virtual typical subject; the "individual-structure" (IS) approach that learns a separate BN for each subject, and then finds commonality across the individual structures, and the "common-structure" (CS) approach that imposes the same network structure on the BN of every subject, but allows the parameters to differ across subjects. To explore the effects of these three approaches, we applied them to an fMRI study exploring the motor effect of L-dopa medication on ten subjects with Parkinson's disease (PD), as the profound clinical effects of this medication suggest that fMRI activation in PD subjects after medication should start approaching that of age-matched controls. We found that none of these approaches is generally superior over the others, according to Bayesian-information-criterion (BIC) scores, and that they led to considerably different group-level results. The IS approach was more sensitive to the normalization effect of the L-dopa medication on brain connectivity. However, for the more homogeneous control population, the VTS approach was superior. Group-analysis approaches should be selected carefully with consideration of both statistical and biomedical evidence.

show abstract

Degeneracy and complexity in biological systems

Cited by 1,217 publications

References 47 publications

Mechanisms of Anesthesia: Towards Integrating Network, Cellular, and Molecular Level Modeling

Mechanisms of Anesthesia: Towards Integrating Network, Cellular, and Molecular Level Modeling

Constraints representing a meta-stable régime facilitate exploration during practice and transfer of learning in a complex multi-articular task

Dynamic Bayesian network modeling of fMRI: A comparison of group-analysis methods

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About