title: Synchronization with low power consumption of hardware models of cardiac cells.
abstract: In a diffusively coupled system of mathematical models of cardiac cells, an acceleration phenomenon becomes apparent, with the period of the system becoming shorter than the periods of each isolated circuit. In order to investigate the energy or power consumption necessary to accelerate the oscillation of the coupled system, we propose an electronic circuit oscillator model for cardiac cells with the action potential presented by square waves with plateaus of different duration. When the durations of the plateaus of the isolated circuits were set at different values, while keeping the periods the same, the coupled system was accelerated. As a result the power consumption was reduced by the coupling. A requirement for the acceleration driven by the lowest power consumption was that the duty cycle of the coupled system be equal to 0.4. This duty cycle can be physiologically observed in living cardiac cell tissue. This suggests that cardiac cells are self-organized so as to accelerate through the coupling of cells while the total power consumption is reduced to the minimum state.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biocybernetics, Faculty of Engineering, Niigata University, 2-8050 Ikarashi, Niigata 950-2181, Japan. maeda@bc.niigata-u.ac.jp
authors.forename: Yoshinobu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Maeda
authors.forename: Eiji
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Yagi
authors.forename: Hideo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Makino
mesh_terms: D003201:Computers; D008954:Models, Biological; D009206:Myocardium / Q000166:cytology*