Spiral wave initiation in excitable media

• Published in: Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences Vol. 376; no. 2135; p. 20170379
• Main Author: Zykov, V. S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England The Royal Society Publishing 12-11-2018
• Subjects: Excitable Media; Phase Change Point; Review; Spiral Waves; excitable media; spiral waves; phase change point
• ISSN: 1364-503X; 1471-2962
• DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2017.0379

Spiral waves represent an important example of dissipative structures observed in many distributed systems in chemistry, biology and physics. By definition, excitable media occupy a stationary resting state in the absence of external perturbations. However, a perturbation exceeding a threshold results in the initiation of an excitation wave propagating through the medium. These waves, in contrast to acoustic and optical ones, disappear at the medium's boundary or after a mutual collision, and the medium returns to the resting state. Nevertheless, an initiation of a rotating spiral wave results in a self-sustained activity. Such activity unexpectedly appearing in cardiac or neuronal tissues usually destroys their dynamics which results in life-threatening diseases. In this context, an understanding of possible scenarios of spiral wave initiation is of great theoretical importance with many practical applications.
This article is part of the theme issue 'Dissipative structures in matter out of equilibrium: from chemistry, photonics and biology (part 2)'.