HomeMolecular BiologyNeural Crest Migration — Continuum Density Field

Neural Crest Migration — Continuum Density Field

Interactive 2D continuum (mean-field) simulation of neural crest collective migration: a cell-density field evolves under a chemotaxis advection term, a density-dependent repulsive diffusion term for contact inhibition of locomotion, and an aggregation flux for co-attraction, solved on a finite-volume grid.

Molecular Biology2DModerate60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted⇄ 3D version
2d-neural-crest-cell-migration ↗ Open standalone

This is a 2D continuum counterpart to the 3D neural-crest agent simulation: instead of individually tracked cells, a cell-density field is solved directly on a grid, with chemotaxis represented as advection up a fixed SDF1 gradient, contact inhibition of locomotion represented as a density-dependent (crowding-activated) diffusion term, and co-attraction represented as an aggregation flux toward locally denser regions. The same three local rules from the original mean-field literature on neural crest streaming are recovered as terms in a single conservation law, solved with an explicit finite-volume scheme, giving an independent, mathematically equivalent way to see the same collective-migration phenomenon: a cohesive, directed stream that only holds together when chemotaxis, CIL and co-attraction are balanced.

⚙ Under the hood

A 2D continuum (mean-field) counterpart to the 3D neural crest agent simulation: a cell-density field on a finite-volume grid evolves under chemotaxis advection, a density-dependent diffusion term for contact inhibition of locomotion, and an aggregation flux for co-attraction, with live velocity-field arrows and mass-conserving recycling between the source and target zones.

neural crestcell migrationchemotaxiscontact inhibition of locomotiondevelopmental biologycollective behaviorcontinuum modelreaction-diffusiondensity field2D

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install

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