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. 2007 Mar 16;92(11):3792–3803. doi: 10.1529/biophysj.106.094086

FIGURE 5.

FIGURE 5

Effect of eliminating VIP signaling on the synchronization of 400 neurons under constant darkness. Cellular heterogeneities were introduced as in Fig. 3. The initial cell state was generated by simulating the cell ensemble until a high degree of synchrony was achieved. To mimic the loss of VIP signaling, the extent of VPAC2 saturation was set to zero at t = 72 h. (A) Approximately 60% of the neurons failed to exhibit rhythmicity after two cycles following elimination of VIP signaling. Synchrony was disrupted in the remaining 40% of rhythmic neurons. (B) When averaged across the cell population, the expression of Per and Bmal1 mRNAs decreased and the expression of Cry mRNA increased following the loss of VIP signaling. (C) The synchronization index (SI) showed that the population lost phase coherence after removal of VIP signaling.