Sensitivity minimization, biological homeostasis and information theory

All organisms must be able to adapt to changes in the environment. To this end, they have developed sophisticated regulatory mechanisms to ensure homeostasis. Control engineers, who must design similar regulatory systems, have developed a number of general principles that govern feedback regulation. These lead to constraints which impose trade-offs that arise when developing controllers to minimize the effect of external disturbances on systems. Here, we review some of these trade-offs, particularly Bode’s integral formula. We also highlight its connection to information theory, by showing that the constraints in sensitivity minimization can be cast as limitations on the information transmission through a system, and these have their root in causality. Finally, we look at how these constraints arise in two biological systems: glycolytic oscillations and the energy cost of perfect adaptation in a bacterial chemotactic pathway.