On Wednesday 25 April,time: 15.30, room: Aula A of Physics Department,
Prof. Plamen Ivanov
Director of the Keck Laboratory for Network Physiology
(Physics Department, Boston University and Harvard Medical School)
and founder of NETWORK PHYSIOLOGY will give a seminar on:
Network Physiology: from complex dynamics of individual systems
to networks of organ interactions and the Human Physiolome.
Abstract
The human organism is an integrated network where complex physiological
systems, each with its own regulatory mechanisms, continuously interact
to optimize and coordinate their function.
Organ-to-organ interactions occur at multiple levels and spatiotemporal
time scales to produce distinct physiologic
states: wake and sleep; light and deep sleep; consciousness and
unconsciousness. Disrupting organ communications can lead to
dysfunction of individual systems or to collapse of the entire
organism. Yet, we know almost nothing about the nature of the
interactions between diverse organ systems and their collective role in
maintaining health.
Through the prism of concepts and approaches originating in nonlinear
dynamics, biomedical engineering and statistical physics, we will
present basic characteristics of individual organ systems, distinct
forms of pairwise
coupling between systems, and a new framework to identify and quantify
networks of interactions among diverse organ systems.
We will demonstrate how physiologic network topology and systems
connectivity relate to physiologic state and function, and we will
discuss implications for further theoretical developments and practical
applications within the context of the emerging field of Network
Physiology. The presented investigations are initial steps in building
a first atlas of dynamic interactions among organ systems.
More info at https://sites.google.com/site/labnetworkphysiology/home/