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Published August 1985 | public
Journal Article

Organizing centers in a cellular excitable medium

Abstract

Excitable media provide much of the subject-matter of physiology, especially of electrophysiology. We simulate excitability in a cubical three-dimensional grid of discrete cells. Topologically distinct organizing centers for self-sustaining rhythmic activity (at period 4) arise from suitable initial conditions. Two are shown: the scroll ring and the linked pair of twisted scroll rings. The first has already been observed in a chemically excitable reagent and possibly in heart muscle; the second, and others of a predicted "periodic table of organizing centers", remain to be observed outside computers.

Additional Information

© 1985 Elsevier Science Publishers. Received 4 January 1985; Available online 9 August 2002. This paper was presented at a Symposium on Nonlinear Oscillations in Physiology, Oxford University, 14 September 1984, and printed in the corresponding book of extended abstracts, ed. Derek Linkens. ATW thanks the National Science Foundation for grants CHE 810322 and PCM 8410752. The contents of this paper were first presented at the German Mathematical Society School on Biological Rhythms and Population Dynamics at Bayreuth University in July 1984, courtesy of Volkswagen Foundation. Acknowledgement is made to the Donors of the Petroleum Research Fund administered by the American Chemical Society for partial support of this work.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 24, 2023