Refractory Period Modulates the Spatiotemporal Evolution of Cortical Spreading Depression: A Computational Study |
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| Authors: | Bing Li Shangbin Chen Pengcheng Li Qingming Luo Hui Gong |
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| Institution: | 1. Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology-Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Wuhan, Hubei, China.; 2. MoE Key Laboratory for Biomedical Photonics, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China.; University of Southern California, United States of America, |
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| Abstract: | Cortical spreading depression (CSD) is a pathophysiological phenomenon, which underlies some neurological disorders, such as migraine and stroke, but its mechanisms are still not completely understood. One of the striking facts is that the spatiotemporal evolution of CSD wave is varying. Observations in experiments reveal that a CSD wave may propagate through the entire cortex, or just bypass some areas of the cortex. In this paper, we have applied a 2D reaction-diffusion equation with recovery term to study the spatiotemporal evolution of CSD. By modulating the recovery rate from CSD in the modeled cortex, CSD waves with different spatiotemporal evolutions, either bypassing some areas or propagating slowly in these areas, were present. Moreover, spiral CSD waves could also be induced in case of the transiently altered recovery rate, i.e. block release from the absolute refractory period. These results suggest that the refractory period contributes to the different propagation patterns of CSD, which may help to interpret the mechanisms of CSD propagation. |
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