The Problem of Colliding Networks and its Relation to Cancer

TL;DR

This paper models cell fusion as a problem of colliding attractor networks, suggesting that hybrid states can lead to cancer by occupying spurious attractor states, with implications across biological and social systems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel attractor network model for cell fusion, linking network collisions to cancer development and broader complex system phenomena.

Findings

Hybrid networks tend to assume spurious attractor states.

Cell fusion can cause cells to become cancerous by accessing normally inaccessible states.

The problem of colliding networks has broad relevance beyond biology.

Abstract

Complex systems, ranging from living cells to human societies, can be represented as attractor networks, whose basic property is to exist in one of allowed states, or attractors. We noted that merging two systems that are in distinct attractors creates uncertainty, as the hybrid system cannot assume two attractors at once. As a prototype of this problem, we explore cell fusion, whose ability to combine distinct cells into hybrids was proposed to cause cancer. By simulating cell types as attractors, we find that hybrids are prone to assume spurious attractors, which are emergent and sporadic states of networks, and propose that cell fusion can make a cell cancerous by placing it into normally inaccessible spurious states. We define basic features of hybrid networks and suggest that the problem of colliding networks has general significance in processes represented by attractor networks, including biological, social, and political phenomena.