Elimination of spiral waves in excitable media by magnetic induction

Abstract

The formation of spiral waves in excitable media is a fascinating example of the beauty of nonlinear dynamics in spatiotemporal systems. Apart from the beauty of the patterns, the subject also has many practical application. For example, the emergence of spiral waves in cardiac tissue can lead to arrhythmias. Cortical spiral waves are also involved in epileptic seizures. Motivated by this, we here study the effects of magnetic induction on the formation of spiral waves in excitable media. An external sinusoidal magnetic induction with different amplitudes and angular frequencies is applied in order to study whether spiral waves could be eliminated. We use a network of coupled neurons as a model for the excitable medium. The four-variable magnetic Hindmarsh–Rose model is used for the local dynamics of each isolated neuron. The distribution of the cell membrane potential over time, affected by magnetic induction, is determined and the results are depicted as snapshots of the 2D network. Our research reveals that the continuance of rotating spiral seeds is impaired by high-amplitude magnetic induction. Moreover, we show that low-frequency induction is not capable of breaking the reorganizing rhythm of the spiral seeds, while much higher frequencies can be too fast to overcome this special rhythm.