Abstract | Variation in heart beating rates during the development of cell connections and synchronized beating had been observed in experiment[1]. This phenomenon can be reproduced in a model of coupled excitable FitzHugh Nagumo elements in the presence of noise. In some coupling regimes, the beating rate can be enhanced up to 60% in our simulations, as observed in experiments. The variation of the beating rate can be explained qualitatively by Kramers’ escape rate in a single potential well model. [1] "Synchronization in growing heterogeneous media", W. Chen, S. C. Cheng, E. Avalos, O. Drugova, G. Osipov, Pik-Yin Lai, and C. K. Chan, Europhys. Lett. 86, 18001(2009). |