Modeling the glucose-insulin regulatory system and ultradian insulin secretory oscillations with two explicit time delays

Jiaxu Li, Yang Kuang, Clinton C. Mason

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

166 Scopus citations

Abstract

In the glucose-insulin regulatory system, ultradian insulin secretory oscillations are observed to have a period of 50-150 min. After pioneering work traced back to the 1960s, several mathematical models have been proposed during the last decade to model these ultradian oscillations as well as the metabolic system producing them. These currently existing models still lack some of the key physiological aspects of the glucose-insulin system. Applying the mass conservation law, we introduce two explicit time delays and propose a more robust alternative model for better understanding the glucose-insulin endocrine metabolic regulatory system and the ultradian insulin secretory oscillations for the cases of continuous enteral nutrition and constant glucose infusion. We compare the simulation profiles obtained from this two time delay model with those from the other existing models. As a result, we notice many unique features of this two delay model. Based on our intensive simulations, we suspect that one of the possibly many causes of ultradian insulin secretion oscillations is the time delay of the insulin secretion stimulated by the elevated glucose concentration.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)722-735
Number of pages14
JournalJournal of Theoretical Biology
Volume242
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 7 2006

Keywords

  • Delay differential equation model
  • Glucose-insulin regulatory system
  • Insulin secretion
  • Time delay
  • Ultradian oscillation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Statistics and Probability
  • Modeling and Simulation
  • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
  • General Immunology and Microbiology
  • General Agricultural and Biological Sciences
  • Applied Mathematics

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