Abstract: In certain extracellular environments, there would appear a kind of solitary pulse calcium waves in Rana pipiens sympathetic neurons, propagating inwards along the radial direction from the plasma membrane. To gain a deeper insight into the waves, a model describing intracellular calcium waves in frog sympathetic neurons was established. In the piecewise linear approximation, the present model is identical to the Sneyd model. Thus, with Sneyd's method, analytical expressions for the wave speed and profiles of 1-D solitary pulse wave were obtained. A wave speed of 21.5 μm/s was deduced, which agrees rather well with experimental data.

Key words: ryanodine receptor, calcium oscillation, solitary pulse calcium wave, sympathetic neuron