Coupled oscillator systems of cultured cardiac myocytes: fluctuation and scaling properties

Isolated and cultured neonatal cardiac myocytes exhibit autonomous rhythmic contraction, and their dynamics vary dramatically depending on the extent of mutual coupling among individual myocytes. We study the temporal changes of interbeat interval series in aggregated systems of spontaneously beating cultured neonatal rat cardiac myocytes and observe a rich variety of complex, nonlinear features such as frequent alternations, bistability, and periodic spikes. Fluctuation analysis of the interval series reveals that there occurs a transition in scaling behavior from persistent correlations to antipersistent correlations as the coupling develops with incubation time. Additionally, we perform computer simulations using interacting Bonhoeffer-van der Pol oscillators to understand the effects of coupling on the fluctuation dynamics of each constituent oscillator. We find that the formation of strong and heterogeneous coupling among the oscillators is a key factor to yield the complexity in the interval series as well as in the scaling behavior.