Understanding the mechanics of brain embryogenesis can provide insights on pathologies related to brain development, such as lissencephaly, a genetic disease which cause a reduction of the number of cerebral sulci. Recent experiments on brain organoids have confirmed that gyrification, i.e. the formation of the folded structures of the brain, is triggered by the inhomogeneous growth of the peripheral region. However, the rheology of these cellular aggregates and the mechanics of lissencephaly are still matter of debate. In this work, we develop a mathematical model of brain organoids based on the theory of morpho-elasticity. We describe them as non-linear elastic bodies, composed of a disk surrounded by a growing layer called cortex. The external boundary is subjected to a tissue surface tension due the intercellular adhesion forces. We show that the resulting surface energy is relevant at the small length scales of brain organoids and significantly affects the mechanics of cellular aggregates. We perform a linear stability analysis of the radially symmetric configuration and we study the post-buckling behaviour through finite element simulations. We find that the process of gyrification is triggered by the cortex growth and modulated by the competition between two length scales: the radius of the organoid and the capillary length due to surface tension. We show that a solid model can reproduce the results of the in-vitro experiments. Furthermore, we prove that the lack of brain sulci in lissencephaly is caused by a reduction of the cell stiffness: the softening of the organoid strengthens the role of surface tension, delaying or even inhibiting the onset of a mechanical instability at the free boundary. * davide.riccobelli@sissa.it † giulia.bevilacqua@polimi.it arXiv:1905.03659v1 [cond-mat.soft]

We minimize elastic energies on framed curves which penalize both curvature and torsion. We also discuss critical points using the infinite dimensional version of the Lagrange multipliers’ method. Finally, some examples arising from the applications are discussed and also numerical experiments are presented.

We study the equilibrium problem of a system consisting by several Kirchhoff rods linked in an arbitrary way and tied by a soap film, using techniques of the Calculus of Variations. We prove the existence of a solution with minimum energy, which may be quite irregular, and perform experiments confirming the kind of surface predicted by the model.

Recent experiments have observed the emergence of standing waves at the free surface of elastic bodies attached to a rigid oscillating substrate and subjected to critical values of forcing frequency and amplitude. This phenomenon, known as Faraday instability, is now well understood for viscous fluids but surprisingly eluded any theoretical explanation for soft solids. Here, we characterize Faraday waves in soft incompressible slabs using the Floquet theory to study the onset of harmonic and subharmonic resonance eigenmodes. We consider a ground state corresponding to a finite homogeneous deformation of the elastic slab. We transform the incremental boundary value problem into an algebraic eigenvalue problem characterized by the three dimensionless parameters, that characterize the interplay of gravity, capillary and elastic waves. Remarkably, we found that Faraday instability in soft solids is characterized by a harmonic resonance in the physical range of the material parameters. This seminal result is in contrast to the subharmonic resonance that is known to characterize viscous fluids, and opens the path for using Faraday waves for a precise and robust experimental method that is able to distinguish solid-like from fluid-like responses of soft matter at different scales.