On dynamics of excitation in F-actin: automaton model

We represent a filamentous actin molecule as a graph of finite-state machines (F-actin automaton). Each node in the graph takes three states resting, excited, refractory. All nodes update their states simultaneously and by the same rule, in discrete time steps. Two rules are considered: threshold rule a resting node is excited if it has at least one excited neighbour and narrow excitation interval rule a resting node is excited if it has exactly one excited neighbour. We analyse distributions of transient periods and lengths of limit cycles in evolution of F-actin automaton, propose mechanisms for formation of limit cycles and evaluate density of information storage in F-actin automata.