Title
On the propagation of calcium waves in an inhomogeneous medium
Abstract
Although the exact details are disputed, it is well established that propagating waves of increased intracellular free Ca2+ concentration arise from a positive feedback or autocatalytic mechanism whereby Ca2+ stimulates its own release. Most previous modeling of the propagation of Ca2+ waves has assumed that the sites of autocatalytic Ca2+ release, the activation sites, are homogeneously distributed through the cytoplasm. We investigate how the spacing and size of the activation sites affect the existence and speed of propagating calcium waves. We first study the simplest model of an excitable system to obtain analytic estimates of the critical spacing. We then derive analytic expressions for the speed of the advancing wave front in the self-oscillatory case and compare them to numerical results. The theoretical results are illustrated by computed solutions of two similar models for calcium wave propagation.
Year
DOI
Venue
1997
10.1137/S0036139995286035
SIAM Journal of Applied Mathematics
Keywords
Field
DocType
calcium waves,calcium oscillations,excitable systems,periodic medium,traveling waves,periodic plane waves
Wavefront,Traveling wave,Wave propagation,Mathematical analysis,Longitudinal wave,Mechanical wave,Optics,Positive feedback,Mechanics,Calcium Waves,Mathematics
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
57
1
0036-1399
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
8
3.80
0
Authors
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
James Sneyd14715.43
Jonathan A. Sherratt25022.19