Mitochondrial networks in cardiac myocytes under oxidative stress show collective (cluster) behavior through synchronization of their inner membrane potentials (ΔΨ m ). However, it is unclear whether the oscillation frequency and coupling strength between individual mitochondria affect the size of the cluster and vice versa. We used the wavelet transform and developed advanced signal processing tools that allowed us to capture individual mitochondrial ΔΨ m oscillations in cardiac myocytes and examine their dynamic spatio-temporal properties. Heterogeneous frequency behavior prompted us to sort mitochondria according to their frequencies. Signal analysis of the mitochondrial network showed an inverse relationship between cluster size and cluster frequency as well as between cluster amplitude and cluster size. High cross-correlation coefficients between neighboring mitochondria clustered longitudinally along the myocyte striations, indicated anisotropic communication between mitochondria. Isochronal mapping of the onset of myocyte-wide ΔΨ m depolarization further exemplified heterogeneous ΔΨ m among mitochondria. Taken together, the results suggest that frequency and amplitude modulation of clusters of synchronized mitochondria arises by means of strong changes in local coupling between neighboring mitochondria.wavelets | frequency | amplitude | mitochondrial oscillator | mitochondrial coupling M itochondria in cardiac myocytes under the influence of substrate deprivation or oxidative stress have a fundamental role as determinants of cell life or death, with implications that scale to affect the function of the whole heart (1, 2). Cardiac mitochondria are organized in a highly ordered network consisting of intermyofibrillar, subcarcolemmal, and perinuclear (3) mitochondria whose coordinated function controls the energy metabolism of the myocyte (4).In cardiac myocytes, the localized perturbation of a few mitochondria within the overall mitochondrial network can trigger the transition from the physiological to the pathophysiological state by producing synchronized whole-myocyte oscillations of ΔΨ m that can be monitored with the fluorescent dye tetramethylrhodamine ethyl ester (TMRE) (5). The imbalance between reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and ROS scavenging capacity in a significant proportion of the network (∼60%) (5) is thought to destabilize ΔΨ m beyond a critical point into a state of ROS-induced ROS release. Increased ROS overflow exceeding a threshold level results in the appearance of a spanning cluster of mitochondria oscillating in apparent synchrony throughout the cell as the mitochondrial network locks into a low-frequency, high-amplitude oscillatory mode (6, 7).In many disparate examples of physically and chemically coupled oscillators, synchronization of the system generally arises from an initial nucleus of (spontaneously) synchronized oscillators that integrate neighboring oscillators, thereby increasing the size and signal amplitude of the initial oscillatory nucleus (8-11).When the clus...