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Temporal information processing from phase-separation kinetics

Determine the range of temporal information processing tasks enabled by kinetic phenomena in phase separation, including nucleation delays, coarsening, and Ostwald ripening.

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Background

Phase separation exhibits rich time-dependent behaviors—nucleation delays, Ostwald ripening, and coarsening—that can, in principle, filter or decode temporal patterns in inputs. Examples include responses to oscillatory transcription factor dynamics and time delays used for kinetic proofreading in signaling pathways.

A comprehensive understanding of what temporal computations these kinetics can implement, and under which conditions, is currently lacking.

References

We do not have a broader sense of the range of temporal information processing enabled by the many kinetic aspects of phase separation.

— Could Living Cells Use Phase Transitions to Process Information? (2507.23384 - Murugan et al., 31 Jul 2025) in Section III, Subsection "Physical determinants of computational abilities" (paragraph "Ripening for temporal information processing")