Nonlinear oscillator model reproducing various phenomena in the dynamics of the conduction system of the heart.

A dedicated nonlinear oscillator model able to reproduce the pulse shape, refractory time, and phase sensitivity of the action potential of a natural pacemaker of the heart is developed. The phase space of the oscillator contains a stable node, a hyperbolic saddle, and an unstable focus. The model reproduces several phenomena well known in cardiology, such as certain properties of the sinus rhythm and heart block. In particular, the model reproduces the decrease of heart rate variability with an increase in sympathetic activity. A sinus pause occurs in the model due to a single, well-timed, external pulse just as it occurs in the heart, for example due to a single supraventricular ectopy. Several ways by which the oscillations cease in the system are obtained (models of the asystole). The model simulates properly the way vagal activity modulates the heart rate and reproduces the vagal paradox. Two such oscillators, coupled unidirectionally and asymmetrically, allow us to reproduce the properties of heart rate variability obtained from patients with different kinds of heart block including sino-atrial blocks of different degree and a complete AV block (third degree). Finally, we demonstrate the possibility of introducing into the model a spatial dimension that creates exciting possibilities of simulating in the future the SA the AV nodes and the atrium including their true anatomical structure.

Flight-muscle polymorphism in the cricket Gryllus firmus: muscle characteristics and their influence on the evolution of flightlessness.

Flight muscles of the cricket Gryllus firmus are polymorphic, existing as pink or white phenotypes. White muscles are smaller in size, have reduced number and size of muscle fibers, and have reduced in vitro enzyme activities and respiration rates relative to pink muscles of newly molted, fully winged adults. G. firmus is also polymorphic for wing length. All newly molted long-winged adults exhibited the pink-muscle phenotype, while most newly molted short-winged adults exhibited the white-muscle phenotype, which resulted from arrested muscle growth. As long-winged adults aged, fully grown pink muscle was transformed into white muscle via histolysis. The substantially higher respiration rate of pink muscle likely contributes to the elevated whole-organism respiration rate of long-winged females, which has been documented previously and which is thought to divert nutrients from egg production. Histolyzed white flight muscle from long-winged crickets also exhibited significantly elevated respiration rate and enzyme activities compared with underdeveloped white muscle from short-winged adults, although these differences were not as great as those between pink and white muscles. Fecundity was much more elevated in females with white verus pink flight muscles than it was in females with short versus long wings. The fitness gain resulting from flightlessness has typically been estimated in previous studies by comparing enhanced egg production of short-winged and long-winged females, without considering the influence of flight-muscle variation. Our results suggest that the magnitude of this fitness gain has been substantially underestimated.