Sensitivity and flexibility of regular and chaotic calcium oscillations

Sensitivity and flexibility are important properties of biological systems. These properties are here investigated for intracellular calcium oscillations. For a particular model, we comparatively investigate sensitivity and flexibility of regular and chaotic Ca2+ oscillations. For this model, we obtain two main results. First, sensitivity of the model system to parameter shifting does not depend on the complexity of Ca2+ oscillations. We observe, however, that both regular and chaotic Ca2+ oscillations are highly sensitive in regions close to bifurcation points. Second, also flexibility of Ca2+ oscillations does not significantly depend on the type of Ca2+ oscillations. Our results show that regular as well as chaotic Ca2+ oscillations in the studied model are highly flexible in regimes with weak dissipation. Both results are discussed in the sense of possible biological importance. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.