Alladi Ramakrishnan Hall

Effects of curvature on activation dynamics in excitable media

Soling Zimik

IMSc Chennai

Physiological organs that have excitable property, such as the heart, uterus, gastrointestinal tract, etc., possess complicated geometries, which naturally induce variations in the local curvature of the tissue. We find that the intrinsic curvature of these geometries can significantly affect the ability of a cluster of oscillatory cells (which can occur because of diseases or during a natural process such as in a gravid uterus) to trigger excitations. The high-curvature regions trigger excitations more easily as compared to low-curvature regions when populated with oscillators. This finding could have implications in locating and quantifying regions, for example in the heart, that are susceptible to abnormal triggers. We also show that curvature plays a role in synchronizing excitations in these systems.