Abstract
Pancreatic β-cells exhibit periodic bursting electrical activity (BEA) consisting of active and silent phases. The Sherman-Rinzel-Keizer (SRK) model of this phenomenon consists of three coupled first-order nonlinear differential equations which describe the dynamics of the membrane potential, the activation parameter for the voltage-gated potassium channel, and the intracellular calcium concentration. These equations are nondimensionalized and transformed into a Liénard differential equation coupled to a single first-order differential equation for the slowly changing nondimensional calcium concentration. Leading-order perturbation problems are derived for the silent and active phases of the BEA on slow and fast time scales. Numerical solutions of these leading-order problems are compared with those for the exact equation in their respective regions. The leading-order solution in the active phase has a limit cycle behavior with a slowly varying frequency. It is observed that the “damping term” in the Liénard equation is small numerically.KeywordsBursting electrical activityNonlinear oscillatorsLimit cyclesPerturbation problemsβ-cellsSherman-Rinzel-Keizer model
Published Version
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