The stability of traveling calcium pulses in a pancreatic acinar cell

The traveling pulse solutions of an intracellular calcium waves model, formulated by Sneyd et al. [Physica D 145 (2000) 158], are shown to be stable for an extended range of inositol trisphosphate (IP3) concentrations. The nonlinear reaction–diffusion system that describes the interaction between calcium and IP3 receptors in pancreatic acinar cells exhibits a T-point bifurcation. Although the waves at the T-point are unstable (due to unstable essential spectrum), compelling numerical evidence shows that the bifurcating calcium pulses themselves are stable.