Dr. David Kleinfeld introduced me to this open question in neurophysics. It felt refreshing to return to a biophysics problem after messing with other sub-fields for a few years. However, the literature gap seems to be too large for a novice like me to grapple without committing to it full-time. Regardless, I kept trying over the months, only to keep feeling more lost.
Just to take a step back and breathe while feeling this way, I wrote a literature review about the problem (follows). Just for the sake of attempting trendy fashion, I formatted it the way the American Physical Society expects their articles to follow. While I will retain more-recent results until further development, you are welcome to toss any questions or ideas my way [think: latest experiments + (ensembles ~ statistical mechanics)!]. I finally paused work on this project a few weeks ago to focus on my transition to the University of Washington. Perhaps I might return to this later! 😉
Mildly Related Public Service Announcement: If you are interested in biophysics and have the capacity to take one of her classes, I would strongly recommend Dr. Olga Dudko – her teaching significantly impacted the way I think as a physicist, positively.