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Numerous contemporary studies confirm that neurons, astrocytes and blood vessels function as a unified dynamic system. Consequently, the concept of the integrated neurogliovascular unit (NGVU), encompassing these components, has emerged and gained significant traction in recent years. According to this framework, normal brain function relies on a broad complex of interactions between NGVU elements, while the disruption of these links may underlie various neuropathologies. Understanding the processes within a single NGVU, as well as the organization of connections between multiple units, is a prerequisite for successful diagnosis and therapy of neurological disorders.

In this work, we developed an NGVU model that, for the first time, integrates a detailed description of synaptically coupled excitatory and inhibitory neuronal networks (accounting for the E/I balance), extracellular environment dynamics (potassium, glutamate, GABA), and norepinephrine-modulated astrocytic activity, with subsequent regulation of local blood flow.

A key conceptual feature of the model is the integration of multiscale processes — ranging from ion dynamics at the level of individual Hodgkin – Huxley neurons to substance diffusion across a network of 100 NGVUs — into a single system of coupled nonlinear differential equations. This approach enabled the investigation of the ensemble’s collective dynamics and the identification of novel functional regimes.

Numerical experiments established that extracellular potassium dynamics and positive feedback play a decisive role in the formation of stable spatial excitation structures. It is shown that under local stimulation, activity remains confined due to potassium diffusion outflow; however, supercritical excitation initiates self-sustaining autowave regimes. The stabilization of these regimes leads to the formation of spatial patterns morphologically similar to Turing structures. These patterns, characterized by alternating zones of high and low activity, are independent of specific initial conditions but sensitive to parameter variations. This suggests that the system operates in a dynamic instability (chaos) regime, which is consistent with the concept of self-organized criticality of the brain under physiological conditions. The model successfully reproduces experimentally observed phenomena, including bursting and sensitivity to extracellular potassium. The results provide new perspectives for analyzing the pathophysiological mechanisms of brain function.

The spatiotemporal dynamics of a three-component model for food web is considered. The model describes the interactions among resource, prey and predator that consumes both species. In a previous work, the author analyzed the model without taking into account spatial heterogeneity. This study continues the model study of the community considering the diffusion of individuals, as well as directed movements of the predator. It is assumed that the predator responds to the spatial change in the resource and prey density by occupying areas where species density is higher or avoiding them. Directed predator movement is described by the advection term, where velocity is proportional to the gradient of resource and prey density. The system is considered on a one-dimensional domain with zero-flux conditions as boundary ones. The spatiotemporal dynamics produced by model is determined by the system stability in the vicinity of stationary homogeneous state with respect to small inhomogeneous perturbations. The paper analyzes the possibility of wave instability leading to the emergence of autowaves and Turing instability, as a result of which stationary patterns are formed. Sufficient conditions for the existence of both types of instability are obtained. The influence of local kinetic parameters on the spatial structure formation was analyzed. It was shown that only Turing instability is possible when taxis on the resource is positive, but with a negative taxis, both types of instability are possible. The numerical solution of the system was found by using method of lines (MOL) with the numerical integration of ODE system by means of splitting techniques. The spatiotemporal dynamics of the system is presented in several variants, realizing one of the instability types. In the case of a positive taxis on the prey, both autowave and stationary structures are formed in smaller regions, with an increase in the region size, Turing structures are not formed. For negative taxis on the prey, stationary patterns is observed in both regions, while periodic structures appear only in larger areas.