Faculty Articles
An Investigation of the Plausibility of Stochastic Resonance in Tubulin Dimers
Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Biosystems
ISSN
0303-2647
Publication Date
2-2012
Abstract
This paper considers the possibility of stochastic resonance (SR) in tubulin dimers. A formula for the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of tubulin as a function of temperature is derived. The effective potential experienced by a delocalized electron in such a dimer is postulated to be a symmetric bimodal well. Inter-well and intra-well motions are described by Kramers rate theory and the Langevin formalism respectively. The frequency-dependent expression for the SNR shows that the response of the electron-tubulin dimer system is enhanced by ambient dipolar oscillations in specific frequency regimes. This is a characteristic of SR. Biophysical implications of this property such as the relevance to 8.085 MHz microtubule resonance and the clocking mechanism are detailed.
DOI
10.1016/j.biosystems.2011.09.005
Volume
107
Issue
2
First Page
81
Last Page
87
NSUWorks Citation
Craddock, T. J.,
Saha, A. A.,
Tuszynski, J. A.
(2012). An Investigation of the Plausibility of Stochastic Resonance in Tubulin Dimers. Biosystems, 107(2), 81-87.
Available at: https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cps_facarticles/216
