Eur. Phys. J. B 83, 401-407 (2011)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2011-20517-y

Regular Article

Modified Langevin approach for a stochastic calcium puff model

¹ Department of Physics and Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, P.R. China
² Institute of Physics, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 10099 Berlin, Germany

^a e-mail: jianweishuai@xmu.edu.cn

Received: 28 June 2011
Received in final form: 3 August 2011
Published online: 17 October 2011

Abstract

In many cell types, intracellular calcium is released from internal stores through calcium release channels. Because these channels are distributed in clusters with a few tens of channels, the clusters show a strongly stochastic open and close dynamics, resulting in noisy localized Ca²⁺ signals called puffs. Using the Li-Rinzel model we compare the stochastic channel simulations for the Markov method and three different Langevin approaches. We suggest that a modified Langevin approach should be considered in order to more accurately simulate Markov channel noise for puff dynamics.