{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,25]],"date-time":"2026-09-25T04:05:03Z","timestamp":1790309103918,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":56,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,10]],"date-time":"2026-03-10T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1773100800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100004070","name":"Khalifa University","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["RIG-2023-051"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["RIG-2023-051"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100004070","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100004070","name":"Khalifa University","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["RIG-2025-001"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["RIG-2025-001"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100004070","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100012001","name":"UAE-NIH Collaborative Research","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["AJF-NIH-25-KU"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["AJF-NIH-25-KU"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100012001","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001663","name":"Volkswagenstiftung","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["96732"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["96732"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001663","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Entropy"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Cells adapt their phenotypes in noisy microenvironments while maintaining robust decision-making. We develop a coarse-grained theoretical framework in which cellular phenotypic adaptation is described as Bayesian decision-making coupled to replication and diffusion. This leads to an effective Fokker-Planck equation with an emergent fitness landscape governing phenotypic dynamics. We identify distinct phenotypic regimes homeostatic fixation, bistable decision-making, critical switching, and runaway explosion and propose a biological interpretation in which homeostatic and bistable landscapes correspond to healthy differentiated cell states, whereas explosive landscapes capture stem-like or cancer-like behavior. In the Gaussian setting, the correlation between intrinsic and extrinsic states directly encodes mutual information and acts as a bifurcation parameter: high correlation produces shallow or explosive landscapes associated with phenotypic plasticity, while reduced correlation stabilizes differentiated fates by deepening potential wells. We further show that proliferation reshapes these landscapes in a nontrivial manner. Proliferation conditionally stabilizes local homeostasis without altering global confinement, or cooperates with biased environmental sensing to eliminate homeostasis\/bistability and drive cancer-like phenotypic explosion even at high phenotypic fidelity. Finally, we show that negative intrinsic\u2013extrinsic correlations suppress explosive dynamics but also reduce bistable plasticity, suggesting a robustness\u2013plasticity trade-off. Together, our results suggest that development, tissue homeostasis, and carcinogenesis can be understood as information-driven deformations of a Bayesian phenotypic fitness landscape.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/e28030312","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,10]],"date-time":"2026-03-10T14:45:39Z","timestamp":1773153939000},"page":"312","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Bayesian Decision-Making Shapes Phenotypic Landscapes from Differentiation to Cancer"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"28","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8210-5978","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Arnab","family":"Barua","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing, Technische Univesit\u00e4t Dresden, N\u00f6thnitzer Stra\u00dfe 46, 01062 Dresden, Germany"},{"name":"Mathematics Department, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi P.O. Box 127788, United Arab Emirates"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1270-7885","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Haralampos","family":"Hatzikirou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing, Technische Univesit\u00e4t Dresden, N\u00f6thnitzer Stra\u00dfe 46, 01062 Dresden, Germany"},{"name":"Mathematics Department, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi P.O. Box 127788, United Arab Emirates"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,10]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Simon, H.A. (1960). 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