TY - JOUR T1 - Tension and Robustness in Multitasking Cellular Networks A1 - Wong, Jeffrey V. A1 - Li, Bochong A1 - You, Lingchong Y1 - 2012/04/26 N2 - Author Summary Multitasking pervades our daily lives. For example, the technological devices that we increasingly rely upon are now engineered with such multifunctionality or “integration” in mind. Similarly, cellular networks also multitask in that they generate multiple, distinct dynamics according to their operating context. Here we show that differences in parameter spaces that underlie different dynamics thus cause a “tension”, which ultimately constrains network operation. In particular, our analysis reveals that tension negatively impacts robustness by reducing accessibility of parameters able to accomplish two tasks and reduces their ability to withstand perturbations. The presence of tension and its negative impact on network robustness represents a fundamental, generic constraint on the operation of different multitasking networks. JF - PLOS Computational Biology JA - PLOS Computational Biology VL - 8 IS - 4 UR - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002491 SP - e1002491 EP - PB - Public Library of Science M3 - doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002491 ER -