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Updated: Nov 5, 2025

Spatiotemporal Mapping of Motility in Ex Vivo Preparations of the Intestines
Published on: January 27, 2016
Peristalsis by pulses of activity
1PMMH, CNRS-UMR 7636, CNRS, ESPCI Paris, PSL Research University, 10 Rue Vauquelin, 75005 Paris, France.
Abstract:
Peristalsis by actively generated waves of muscle contraction is one of the most fundamental ways of producing motion in living systems. We show that peristalsis can be modeled by a train of rectangular-shaped solitary waves of localized activity propagating through otherwise passive matter. Our analysis is based on the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam (FPU) type discrete model accounting for active stresses and we reveal the existence in this problem of a critical regime which we argue to be physiologically advantageous.
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