Ion channels - estimation and control at macroscopic and nano scales

All electrical activities in the nervous system, including communications between cells and the influence of hormones and drugs on cell function, are regulated by membrane ion channels. Therefore understanding their mechanisms at a molecular level is a fundamental problem in biology. This paper shows how ideas in hidden Markov model signal processing, stochastic control and stochastic optimization can be used to understand the operation of ion channels at both a macroscopic and nano scales.