Mathematical Biology Seminar Artie Sherman Wednesday April 9, 2008 3:05pm in LCB 225 "The Dual Oscillator Model for Calcium and Metabolism in Pancreatic Beta Cells" " Abstract: The dual oscillator model describes the metabolic and electrical oscillations that combine to drive insulin secretion from the beta-cells of the pancreatic islets of Langerhans. The metabolic and electrical subsystems are each postulated to be able to oscillate independently but also to interact with each other. A heuristic diagrammatic reduced model has been developed for pedagogical purposes but has turned out to be useful for predicting behaviors of the full mathematical model. The heuristic model treats each of the two oscillators as a relaxation oscillator, with silent, oscillatory, and fully on modes and thresholds for transitioning between the modes that are dependent on the glucose concentration applied to an islet. Depending on the relative positions of the thresholds of the two, a variety of patterns of behavior can be obtained, essentially all of which are found experimentally. Conversely, most of the observed patterns correspond to some such arrangement.