Intercellular Spiral Waves of Calcium

Model Status

This model contains partial differentials and as such can not currently be solved by existing CellML tools.

Model Structure

Intercellular calcium waves have been seen to occur in several types of cells, including ciliated tracheal epithelial cells, rat brain glial cells, in liver tissue and also in the hippocampus. These calcium waves are triggered by a range of different stimuli, including mechanical or hormonal stimulation, and they are thought to play an important role in intercellular communication, helping to coordinate multicellular responses to certain stimuli. Understanding the molecular mechanism which underlie intercellular calcium waves is important for the understanding of processes such as wound healing, mechanical transduction, cell growth and information processing.

In the Wikins and Sneyd 1998 publication described here, the authors use an existing mathematical model to study the properties of intercellular calcium waves in the context of a general framework (see the figure below). This makes the model applicable to any system in which intercellular waves are propagated by coupled excitable systems. Similar systems have been studied in the context of cardiac electrophysiology, but because the calcium diffusion coefficient is so small, intercellular calcium waves have some unique properties.

The complete original paper reference is cited below:

Intercellular Spiral Waves of Calcium, Matthew Wilkins and James Sneyd, 1998, Journal of Theoretical Biology , 191, 299-308. (A PDF version of the article is available to subscribers on the Journal of Theoretical Biology website.) PubMed ID: 9631570