Spatiotemporal Symmetry in Rings of Coupled Biological Oscillators of <i>Physarum</i> Plasmodial Slime Mold

Atsuko Takamatsu; Reiko Tanaka; Hiroyasu Yamada; Toshiyuki Nakagaki; Teruo Fujii; Isao Endo

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.078102

Spatiotemporal Symmetry in Rings of Coupled Biological Oscillators of Physarum Plasmodial Slime Mold

Atsuko Takamatsu, Reiko Tanaka, Hiroyasu Yamada, Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Teruo Fujii, and Isao Endo

Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 078102 – Published 25 July 2001

Abstract

Spatiotemporal patterns in rings of coupled biological oscillators of the plasmodial slime mold, Physarum polycephalum, were investigated by comparing with results analyzed by the symmetric Hopf bifurcation theory based on group theory. In three-, four-, and five-oscillator systems, all types of oscillation modes predicted by the theory were observed including a novel oscillation mode, a half period oscillation, which has not been reported anywhere in practical systems. Our results support the effectiveness of the symmetric Hopf bifurcation theory in practical systems.

Received 7 September 2000

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.078102

Authors & Affiliations

Atsuko Takamatsu^1,2,7,*, Reiko Tanaka³, Hiroyasu Yamada^4,5,6, Toshiyuki Nakagaki^4,5, Teruo Fujii², and Isao Endo⁷

¹PRESTO, Japan Science and Technology Corporation, Saitama, Japan
²Underwater Technology Research Center, Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, 4-6-1, Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo, 153-8505, Japan
³Department of Applied Physics and Physico-Informatics, Keio University, Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama, 223-8522, Japan
⁴Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0812, Japan
⁵Local Spatio-Temporal Functions Laboratory, Frontier Research System, RIKEN, Hirosawa, Wako-shi, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan
⁶Bio-Mimetic Control Research Center, RIKEN, Nagoya, 463-0003, Japan
⁷Biochemical Systems Laboratory, RIKEN, Hirosawa, Wako-shi, Saitama, 351-0198, Japan