Greater connectivity of the descending pain modulatory system network in the infant brain is associated with lower pain-related brain activity.

Alterations to brain network communication leading to a progressive loss in descending inhibitory modulation of the spinal cord is a key determinate of pain state development following peripheral nerve injury.

The flexible network architecture of the brain is sensitive to the modulation of neural gain, which may be mediated by ascending arousal nuclei, such as the noradrenergic locus coeruleus.

Mathematical modeling supports a scenario where cell-cell adhesion gradually evolves through natural selection, leading to the emergence of cohesive aggregates in microbial populations.

The locus coeruleus is organised into functional modules with subsets of noradrenergic neurones independently projecting to the spinal cord and prefrontal cortex to exert discrete, antithetical modulatory actions on a range of pain-related behaviours.

A description of evolution that is based on birth-death processes, and in which fitness is at most a derived quantity, is advocated.

Sex-specific characteristics of the fruit fly courtship behavior are not specified by a single binary switch, but as a combination of traits that are modularly specified by separable genetic switches.

The timing and outcome of mammalian cell lineage decisions can be controlled by slow, stochastic events on individual regulatory gene loci.

Gamma-band synchronization behavior in area V1 was predicted by weakly coupled oscillator principles.

Building on previous work (Momeni et al., 2013), it is shown that recognizing the hierarchical organization of biological systems resolves the ongoing controversy on pro-cooperation mechanisms.