The effects of non-self-sustained oscillators on the en-trainment ability of the suprachiasmatic nucleus

Figures

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  Figure 1. The dependence of the free running period τ under constant darkness (a) and the lower limit of entrainment (LLE) to the T-cycle (b) on the proportion p when all the SCN neuronal oscillators are sensitive to the external signal. The light intensity is Kf = 0 in (a), and the coupling strength is g = 0.1 in (b).

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  Figure 2. The evolutions in time of neuronal oscillators under T-cycle of 23.6 h, when the intrinsic amplitudes R in all SCN neurons are larger than 0 (a), or in 70% of VL neurons The amplitudes R are equal to 0 (PVL = 0.7) (b) and in 70% of DM neurons the amplitudes R are equal to 0 (PDM = 0.7) (c). The grey region corresponds to darkness, and VL0 and DM0 represent the neurons where the amplitudes are R = 0 in the VL and the DM respectively. The coupling strength is g = 0.1 and the number of SCN neurons is N = 40.

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  Figure 3. The dependence of the lower limit of entrainment (LLE) on the proportion p for the VL (a) and the DM (b). Three light intensities are taken into account, Kf = 0.05, 0.1 and 0.15. The coupling strength is g = 0.1 and the number of SCN neurons is N = 40.

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  Figure 4. This figure corresponds to Fig. 3, but the intrinsic periods τi of the neurons are not identical and satisfy a normal distribution. The coupling strength is g = 0.1 and the number of SCN neurons is N = 1000.

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  Figure 5. This figure corresponds to Fig. 3, but the coupling strength gi are not identical and satisfy a normal distribution. The mean of the distribution is 0.1, the standard deviation of the distribution is 0.03*0.1 and the number of SCN neurons is N = 1000.

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  Figure 6. The phase information with the neuronal number N = 2 under the lower limit of entrainment. The evolutions of neuronal phases when the neuronal amplitude in the VL neuron is RVL = 0 (a) and in the DM neuron is RDM = 0 (b), the sine form of the phase difference α between the VL neuron and the DM neuron (c), and the cosine form of the phase difference ϕ between the VL neuron and the light cycle (d). The coupling strength is g = 0.1, and the light sensitivity is Kf = 0.15.