Dresden 2020 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 47: Focus Session: Nonlinear Dynamics of the Heart I (joint session DY/BP)

DY 47.5: Talk

Thursday, March 19, 2020, 10:45–11:00, ZEU 118

Synchronization of viscoelastically coupled cardiomyocytes — •Florian Spreckelsen^1,2,3, Stefan Luther^1,2,3, and Ulrich Parlitz^1,2,3,4 — ¹Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-organization, Göttingen, Germany — ²University of Göttingen, Institute for the Dynamics of Complex Systems, Göttingen, Germany — ³DZHK (German Center for Cardiovascular Research), Partner Site Göttingen, Germany — ⁴University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG), Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Göttingen, Germany

Periodically beating cardiomyocytes coupled mechanically by a viscoelastic extracellular matrix are modelled as viscoelastically coupled excitable oscillators. Their synchronization dynamics depends on the stiffness of the coupling matrix [1].

Systems of two coupled cells and linear chains are investigated numerically. At high stiffness of the viscoelastic coupling, full in-phase synchronization is found. Partial n:n synchronization is observed in case of intermediate stiffness. In the special case of purely elastic coupling, two cells show antiphase synchronization while antiphase chimera states are found in linear chains.

The conditions necessary for the synchronization of viscoelastically coupled cardiomyocytes may give a mechanistic explanation for the importance of fibroblasts to the engineering of cardiac tissue [2,3].

[1] Spreckelsen, Luther, Parlitz, Phys. Rev. E 100, 2019

[2] Tiburcy et al., Circulation 135, 2017

[3] Schlick et al., Prog Bio Mol Bio 144, 2019