Fig. 4.

Bioelectrically-mediated gating-electrodiffusion mechanisms can generate a variety of categorically different patterns. A simple gating-electrodiffusion mechanism involving a gap junction permeable anion that inhibits a K⁺ leak channel, leading to self-reinforcing spatial feedback, is shown as a regulatory network in (A) and schematically in (B). By varying parameters for channel gating and anion charge, categorically different patterns of $V_{mem}$ and correlated anion concentration patterns are indicated (C through E). With anion charge of $z^{Anion}=-3$ and channel Hill gating constants of $K_m=0.2$ and $n=3.0$, a stable patterns of stripes and spots are generated (C). With anion charge of $z^{Anion}=-4$ and channel Hill gating constants of $K_m=0.2$ and $n=3.0q$, with a fixed small gradient of $V_{mem}$ along the long axis of the elliptical model, a spatiotemporal pattern of traveling depolarization spots and correlated anion concentration are indicated (D). With anion charge of $z^{Anion}=1$ and channel Hill gating constants of $K_m=0.2$ and $n=1.0$, emergent, smooth, stable gradients form (E).