Agent-Based Modelling of Retinal Development
摘要
Agent-based modelling is a novel and accelerating research tool used for investigating rules in a system that would otherwise be difficult to explore. It allows for the translation of biological mechanisms into programmable logic to observe in simulation environments. By defining rules and constraints involved in retinal progenitor lineage commitment, intrinsic lineage bias is implemented in autonomous agents to investigate the stochasticity of intrinsic cellular decisions in various gene regulator network architectures. The autonomy of the agents allow us to observe their responses based on pre-determined instructions, and how these decisions lead to specialised functionality in self-organisation of the distinct lamination structure found in the retina.