Tam Colloquium
Richard Bertram
Florida State University
Title: From Relaxation Oscillations to French Ducks
Date: Friday, April 8, 2022
Place and Time: Love 101, 3:05pm
Abstract.
Many physical, chemical, and biological systems change over disparate time scales. This multi-timescale feature poses some practical problems, but also provides an opportunity to split the system into subsystems that can be analyzed semi-independently and later stitched back together. In this presentation I will discuss this approach in the context of electrical oscillations that occur in a host of different cell types, including neurons, cardiac myocytes, and hormone-secreting cells. The talk begins with early work from more than a century ago and continues to recent research by my group and others that is pushing forward mathematical concepts in multi-timescale analysis while addressing important biological questions.