I study the role of couplings and specially noise in synchronisation. Both agents are simultaneously present in many systems of coupling oscillators, including (but not limited to) the cardio respiratory interaction, where the effect of low-frequency components (metabolic, neurogenic and myogenic) is observed. A relationship between the strength of this noise and the amount of synchronisation between heart and respiration is observed from experiments: the bigger the former, the weaker the latter. Our analytical and numerical analyses have shown non-common white noise to hinder synchronisation, whereas white common noise may hinder synchronisation when this is achieved via couplings, or boost it in the regime of common-noise-induced synchronisation. One of my current goals is to study the effect of coloured noise.

March 2006 - 2009