Bistable microdomains can recruit monostable background surrounding.

<p>(<b>a</b>) Microdomain behaviour depending on microdomain size and its basal excitatory input (). of the surrounding is in this case monostable. Dark (light) blue indicates parameter regions, where the microdomain is monostable oscillatory (bistable). The grey arrows on the bottom indicate the corresponding parameter regions for global parameter variations (derived from <a href="http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003787#pcbi-1003787-g003" target="_blank">Fig. 3</a>). (<b>b</b>) Position of the bistable microdomains used in (c). (<b>c</b>) Temporal snapshots of an example time course, where a sheet with bistable microdomains is perturbed at T = 0,3,6,9,12,15,18 and 21 s with local, arbitrarily placed stimuli. A video of this simulation is shown in <a href="http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003787#pcbi.1003787.s034" target="_blank">Video S7</a> Parameter details are described in <a href="http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003787#pcbi.1003787.s022" target="_blank">Text S5</a>.