Collective sensing by cell populations with feedback-induced long-range correlations*

Cells sense their environment with remarkable precision, and recent experiments have shown that this precision can be enhanced by cell-cell communication. However, most theoretical investigations of this effect have assumed linear sensing and communication, whereas it is well known that cells use nonlinear feedback to internally amplify sensed signals. Here, using a minimal stochastic model we investigate the interplay of feedback and communication in determining sensory precision. We find that feedback can induce a critical transition and long-range correlations among cells. We investigate the associated sensing tradeoff: on the one hand, we expect long-range order to enhance communication; on the other hand, fluctuations become large at the critical point, so order may come at the cost of precision. We find that depending on the parameters the system can exist in one of two universal regimes, one which permits an ordered phase and one which does not.