CalOra: A software to simulate calcium diffusion

Calcium is a vital second messenger which regulates processes in almost all cell types like myocytes, hepatocytes, oocytes,neurons etc. Due to spatiotemporal limitation of imaging techniques, it is not possible to determine calcium concentration at macroscopic level. For this purpose mathematical modeling of calcium dynamics provides a suitable alternative. Several mathematical models governing intracellular Ca 2+ dynamics have been proposed thus far. Here in this paper author has developed a software to simulate two distinct approximations, namely, Excess buffering approximation (EBA), and Rapid Buffering approximation (RBA). The software is based on oracle 10g and follows an algorithm based on an explicit Eulers method. The software contains all the important functionalities, like Multiple graphs, Spatio-temporal zoom, desired Ca 2+ conc. value retrieval at specific space & time etc., to simulate the approximations for all important biophysical constants, to have a graphical representation of a simulated model and to do comparative analysis among the mathematical models.