Fig. 1.

Pulsatile stimulation in both the acute and oscillatory regime provide experimental calcium responses critical for mechanism elucidation, in addition to previously characterized responses under continuous stimulation in the two regimes. Left- subjecting cells to continuous ligand stimulation at different concentrations can reveal the presence of multiple signaling regimes: oscillatory and acute. Right- Exposing cells to periodic ligand stimulation can reveal the recovery properties of pathway signaling regimes not observable with continuous stimulation alone. Recovery properties are represented by a reduction of the amplitude of responses in later stimulation pulses in the acute regime, and skipped signals in the oscillatory regime.