Spatio-temporal nonlinear modeling of gastric myoelectrical activity

The accomplishment of a complete digestive process of human stomach is regu lated by a spatio-temporally-coordinated electric pattern called gastric my oelectrical activity (GMA). The normal patterns of GMA present temporal evo lution from endogenous rhythmic oscillation to bursting of spikes associate d with contractions, and also ordered spatial propagation of the oscillatin g waves. The abnormal patterns of GMA have been observed in temporal dysrhy thmia, such as tachygastria, bradygastria and arrhythmia, and in spatial pr opagation failure, such as retrograde propagation and uncoupling. Different GMA patterns are associated with different gastric symptoms and there exis t some nonlinear mechanisms to govern the formation and dynamic evolution o f these patterns. However, these mechanisms are so complex that few of them are known by medical observations. The aim of this study is to explore the se mechanisms by spatio-temporal modeling of GMA, The single-cell model sim ulating the formation process of slow waves and spikes, the multi-cell mode l simulating the propagation process of GMA and the extracellular model sim ulating the formation of bipolar recordings are presented.