Beta-cells in the pancreas can be described by a model of coupled biological oscillators with communication links, which can synchronize their electrical activities, giving rise to a square-wave bursting-like insulin release. In fact, Beta-cells play a vital role in analyzing and characterizing diabetes conditions
Pancreatic beta-cells play a vital role in synthesis as well as in insulin. Deficiency in the production of insulin due to beta-cells over a certain threshold results in diabetes.
This research work studies the synchronization between two fractional-order pancreatic beta-cells. It is found that, by modifying only the fractional-order while preserving the system parameter values, different types of bursting activities can be observed. Then, synchronization in the coupled fractional-order pancreatic beta-cells is studied in detail by considering different patterns of the bursting activities.
It is important to note that the functioning of pancreatic beta-cells is not isolated; they are grouped in Langerhans islets to work collectively in a form of synchronization to release insulin via communication pathways. More notably, pancreatic beta-cells exhibit bursting electrical activity (BEA), specially a type of square-wave BEA is the main mechanism for insulin secretion.
From a biological point of view, the square-wave BEA is characterized by a periodic oscillation of the membrane potential in a beta-cell, consisting of an active phase during which the membrane potential is undergoing rapid oscillations, and of a silent phase during which the membrane potential is slowly varying.
While the mechanisms underlying the dynamics of beta-cells have been extensively studied, using integer-order mathematical models, almost nothing is known about fractional-order pancreatic beta-cells models and their synchronization.
For details consult:
Zambrano-Serrano, E., Munoz-Pacheco, J. M., Gomez-Pavon, L. C., Luis-Ramos, A., & Chen, G. (2018). Synchronization in a fractional-order model of pancreatic β-cells. The European Physical Journal Special Topics,227(7-9), 907-919.