Physiological Heterogeneity: Fractals Link Determinism and Randomness in Structures and Functions.

Spatial variation in concentrations or flows within an organ and temporal variation in reaction rates or flows appear to broaden as one refines the scale of observation. How can we characterize heterogeneity independently of scale? Fractals come to our rescue! A system is fractal if its features adhere to the same rules through a succession of different scales. Fractals efficiently describe many types of observations, geometric and kinetic, and help to integrate physiological knowledge.