Periodic calcium waves in coupled cells induced by internal noise

We show that internal stochasticity, originating from finite cell sizes and related small numbers of reactant ions participating in the dynamics, is able to extract a characteristic spatial frequency of calcium waves in the medium of diffusively coupled cells. Internal noise is thereby the only agent acting on the system. As the spatial periodicity is best pronounced at an intermediate level of stochasticity the reported phenomenon is thus a novel observation of internal noise spatial coherence resonance in biochemical tissue-like media. In addition, results shed light on the stochastic versus deterministic nature of dynamics at the cellular and tissue level. 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.