Synchronization in a fractional-order model of pancreatic β-cells

β-cells in the pancreas can be described by a model of coupled biological oscillators with communication links, which can synchronize their electrical activities, giving rise to a square-wave bursting-like insulin release. In fact, β-cells play a vital role in analyzing and characterizing diabetes conditions. This research work studies the synchronization between two fractional-order pancreatic β-cells. Numerically, the fractional-order model of the pancreatic β-cell is analyzed using an algorithm derived from the Grunwald–Letnikov scheme. It is found that, by modifying only the fractional-order while preserving the system parameter values, different types of bursting activities can be observed. Then, synchronization in the coupled fractional-order pancreatic β-cells is studied in detail by considering different patterns of the bursting activities. Simulation results demonstrate that a complete synchronization is effectively attained by choosing a proper value for the control gain.