Non-Tikhonov asymptotic properties of cardiac excitability.

Models of electric excitability of cardiac cells can be studied by singular perturbation techniques. To do this one should take into account parameters appearing in equations in nonstandard ways. The physical reason for this is near-perfect switch behavior of ionic current gates. This leads to a definition of excitability different from the currently accepted one. The asymptotic structure revealed by our analysis can be used to devise simplified caricature models, to obtain approximate analytical solutions, and to facilitate numerical simulations.