Submitted on November 13, 2007
Accepted on February 11, 2008
A quantitative cellular description of gastric slow wave activity
Alberto Corrias1 and Martin Lindsay Buist1*
1 Division of Bioengineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: biebml{at}nus.edu.sg.
Interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC) are responsible for the spontaneous and omnipresent electrical activity in the stomach. A quantitative description of the intracellular processes whose coordinated activity is believed to generate electrical slow waves has been developed and is presented here. In line with recent experimental evidence, the model describes how the interplay between the mitochondria and the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) in cycling intracellular Ca2+ provides the primary regulatory signal for the initiation of the slow wave. The major ion channels that have been identified as influencing slow wave activity have been modeled according to data obtained from isolated ICC. The model has been validated by comparing the simulated profile of the slow waves with experimental recordings and shows good correspondence in terms of frequency, amplitude and shape, in both control and pharmacologically altered conditions.
