Regensburg 2025 – scientific programme
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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik
DY 14: Focus Session: Nonlinear Dynamics in Biological Systems I (joint session DY/BP)
DY 14.9: Talk
Tuesday, March 18, 2025, 12:15–12:30, H43
Nonlinear dynamics of heart and brain — •Irene Pellini1, 2, Simon Bauer1, Johannes Zierenberg1,3, Philip Bittihn1,3, and Viola Priesemann1,3 — 1Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self Organisation, Göttingen, Germany — 2Max Planck School Matter to Life, Heidelberg, Germany — 3Institute for the Dynamics of Complex Systems, University of Göttingen, Germany
The core function of the heart and brain arises from the coordinated interaction of their cells. Both organs rely on excitable units -- cardiomyocytes and neurons -- that propagate electrical signals when a specific threshold is exceeded. Despite this similarity, the two organs exhibit opposed collective behavior due to marked differences in intercellular dynamics and network topology. In the heart, localized electrical connectivity through reciprocal gap junctions generates local synchronization and traveling waves, ensuring efficient pumping function with low entropy. In the brain, long-range connectivity via delayed, non-reciprocal chemical synapses promotes asynchronous dynamics with high entropy, supporting information processing.
Using coupled FitzHugh-Nagumo oscillators, we showcase that characteristic non-linear dynamics for the heart and brain can be related to the network structure, which places both systems on opposite sides of a synchronization phase transition. Crossing this phase transition would lead to pathological conditions, e.g., heart arrhythmia or brain seizures, quantifiable via entropy measures. Our joint view on heart and brain dynamics may foster new perspectives on the function and pathology of both organs.
Keywords: Excitable systems; Nonlinear dynamics; Entropy