Epidemic-Like Calcium Signaling in Mobile Molecular Communication Networks

Molecular Communication is an emerging technology enabling communications in nano-networks. Ca²⁺ signal is one promising option of MC due to the important role in bio-metabolisms and the available characteristics in communication engineering. So far, scientists analyze Ca²⁺ signaling via bio-experiments and simulations. Current researches lack a mathematical model for quantitative analysis of Ca²⁺ signal propagation on the network scale. In this work, we investigate the propagation patterns of Ca²⁺ signals in bio-cellular network. Firstly, we propose an improved Ca²⁺ dynamics model to describe Ca²⁺ signals considering movements of cells and attenuation of Ca²⁺ concentration. Then, we perform multi-modal analysis through the waveform characteristics, and classify cells according to their states. Moreover, a mathematical model is put forward to analyze the propagation of calcium signals based on typical epidemic model. The proposed model fully considers the similarity between: 1) epidemic disease propagates among mobile individuals; 2) Ca²⁺ signal propagates among mobile cells. The proposed model is amended to fit the case considering unique characters of Ca²⁺ signal. Finally, simulation results show that the proposed Ca²⁺ propagation model is coincident with Monte Carlo simulation results, indicating that the model is helpful for understanding how far and how fast Ca²⁺ signal can propagate.