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Updated: May 28, 2026

A Microfluidics Approach for the Functional Investigation of Signaling Oscillations Governing Somitogenesis
Published on: March 19, 2021
Synchronization of period-doubling oscillations in vascular coupled nephrons
J L Laugesen1, E Mosekilde, N-H Holstein-Rathlou
1Department of Physics, The Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Lyngby, Denmark. laugesen@fysik.dtu.dk
Abstract:
The mechanisms by which the individual functional unit (nephron) of the kidney regulates the incoming blood flow give rise to a number of nonlinear dynamic phenomena, including period-doubling bifurcations and intra-nephron synchronization between two different oscillatory modes. Interaction between the nephrons produces complicated and time-dependent inter-nephron synchronization patterns. In order to understand the processes by which a pair of vascular coupled nephrons synchronize, the paper presents a detailed analysis of the bifurcations that occur at the threshold of synchronization. We show that, besides infinite cascades of saddle-node bifurcations, these transitions involve mutually connected cascades of torus and homoclinic bifurcations. To illustrate the broader range of occurrence of this bifurcation structure for coupled period-doubling systems, we show that a similar structure arises in a system of two coupled, non-identical Rössler oscillators.
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