Dresden 2006 – scientific programme

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DY: Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 41: Dynamical Physics in Biological Systems

DY 41.4: Talk

Thursday, March 30, 2006, 10:45–11:00, SCH 251

The emergence of Ca²⁺ puffs as intracellular escape process — •Rüdiger Thul and Martin Falcke — Hahn-Meitner Institut, Abteilung Theorie, Glienickerstrasse 100, 14109 Berlin

Recent experiments and theoretical investigations have demonstrated that intracellular Ca²⁺ is a stochastic nonlinear medium. Local and global patterns are exclusively driven by fluctuations. These patterns form a hierarchy. Global events are built from a series of local incidents, which are termed Ca²⁺ puffs. A detailed study of Ca²⁺ puffs reveals that their emergence can be mapped to an escape process. That permits an analytic calculation of the mean stochastic fraction of the puff period. A quantification of the leading time scales provides further insights into this escape process. Moreover, we show that the spatial restriction of Ca²⁺ puffs enforces a discrete modeling of the Ca²⁺ dynamics.