Chaotic behaviour of an acetylcholinesterase enzyme system

A two compartments model of an acetylcholinesterase enzyme system is investigated. The model is used to investigate the bifurcation, instability and chaotic behaviour of the system. The investigation has uncovered a good part of the rich dynamic characteristics of this system, including: period doubling sequence leading to chaos, banded chaos, fully developed chaos, interior crisis, tangent bifurcation leading to intermittency, periodic windows interrupting chaotic regions and alternating periodic chaotic sequences. The results relate to the phenomena occurring in physiological experiments, such as the periodic stimulation of neural cells and the non-regular functioning of acetylcholine receptors.