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Updated: May 9, 2026

Finite Element Modelling of a Cellular Electric Microenvironment
Published on: May 18, 2021
Mechanism of spiral formation in heterogeneous discretized excitable media
Shu-ichi Kinoshita1, Mayuko Iwamoto, Keita Tateishi
1Meiji Institute for Advanced Study of Mathematical Sciences (MIMS), 4-21-1 Nakano, Tokyo 164-8525, Japan.
Abstract:
Spiral waves on excitable media strongly influence the functions of living systems in both a positive and negative way. The spiral formation mechanism has thus been one of the major themes in the field of reaction-diffusion systems. Although the widely believed origin of spiral waves is the interaction of traveling waves, the heterogeneity of an excitable medium has recently been suggested as a probable cause. We suggest one possible origin of spiral waves using a Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction and a discretized FitzHugh-Nagumo model. The heterogeneity of the reaction field is shown to stochastically generate unidirectional sites, which can induce spiral waves. Furthermore, we found that the spiral wave vanished with only a small reduction in the excitability of the reaction field. These results reveal a gentle approach for controlling the appearance of a spiral wave on an excitable medium.
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