Effect of Network Architecture on Synchronization and Entrainment Properties of the Circadian Oscillations in the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus
Figure 6
Properties of the synchronized network.
(A) Synchronization in constant darkness (DD) of a scale-free architecture ) network with
and
. The measured properties are the amplitude of the
oscillations and the period of these oscillations. Each gray line represents the concentration of
in an individual cell; the thick black line is
. (B) Synchronization in 12 h∶12 h light/dark conditions (LD) for the same network as (A). (C–D) Amplitude of the
oscillations in the DD (C) and LD (D) conditions for different network types as a function of
. (E–F) Period of the
oscillations in the DD conditions (E) and in LD conditions (F) for different network types as a function of
. The amplitude and period in the LD conditions for the
and
networks (D and F) shows large variability because some networks with low connectivity are not properly entrained. This weak entrainment (due to the architecture) induces amplitude modulation and biases the results. In C–F, error bars represent the standard deviation for the results of 30 different networks of the same type. The network types are abbreviated as
for random,
for scale-free, and
for local; the subscript
stands for a random distribution of the light-sensitive cells and the subscripts
or
for a biased distribution as shown in figure 4.