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In various biological systems information from many noisy molecular receptorsmust be integrated into a collective response. A striking example is thethermal imaging organ of pit vipers. Single nerve fibers in the organ reliablyrespond to mK temperature increases, a thousand times more sensitive than theirmolecular sensors, thermo-TRP ion channels. Here, we propose a mechanism forthe integration of this molecular information. In our model, amplificationarises due to proximity to a dynamical bifurcation, separating a regime withfrequent and regular action potentials (APs), from a regime where APs areirregular and infrequent. Near the transition, AP frequency can have anextremely sharp dependence on temperature, naturally accounting for thethousand-fold amplification. Furthermore, close to the bifurcation, most of theinformation about temperature available in the TRP channels' kinetics can beread out from the timing of APs even in the presence of readout noise. Whileproximity to such bifurcation points typically requires fine-tuning ofparameters, we propose that having feedback act from the order parameter (APfrequency) onto the control parameter robustly maintains the system in thevicinity of the bifurcation. This robustness suggests that similar feedbackmechanisms might be found in other sensory systems which also need to detecttiny signals in a varying environment.

A bifurcation integrates information from many noisy ion channels