Cortical Spreading Depression: Migraine Aura Wave

Cortical spreading depression is the slow, self-propagating wave of neuronal and glial depolarization believed to underlie the visual aura that precedes many migraines, and — in more severe form — the secondary injury that spreads through damaged brain tissue after stroke and trauma. This simulator renders a patch of cortex as a 3D excitable medium: click anywhere to plant a depolarization focus and watch a bright wavefront of activity spread outward at a physiologically realistic 2–8 mm/min, leaving a trailing zone of electrical silence behind it. Tune the tissue's excitability to see how a weak focus can fail to ignite a self-sustaining wave, and shorten the refractory period far enough to watch colliding fronts spiral back into recovered tissue instead of simply annihilating — the same reentrant dynamics seen in cardiac arrhythmia.