Nano-scale solution of the Poisson-Nernst-Planck (PNP) equations in a fraction of two neighboring cells reveals the magnitude of intercellular electrochemical waves
Fig 8
The PNP model solution in the extracellular space between two cells in a simulation with an Na+ channel cluster of 196 channels on the membrane of the pre-junctional cell (the channels are opened at t = 0).
The width of the extracellular space, Le, is 10 nm. The plots show the solution in the (x, y)-plane for the center of the domain in the z-direction at five different points in time (specified in the column titles). In the y-direction, we focus on the 50 nm closest to the Na+ channel clusters. The coordinates on the axes are shifted so that x = 0 marks the end of the membrane of the pre-junctional cell and y = 0 marks the center of the Na+ channel cluster. Note that the short duration of the dynamics is an artefact caused by the small membrane area associated with the Na+ channel cluster in the simulation (see Sections 3.2.3–3.2.5 for more details and an estimation of a more realistic duration).