Zeitschrift für Informatik und Systembiologie

The Framework of a Mathematical Model of the Autonomic Nervous System and Physiological Systems: Using the Neuroregulation of Blood Glucose as an Example

Abstract

Graham Wilfred Ewing

Despite the immense advances of medical research there remains a fundamental theoretical deficit regarding how the body is able to maintain its physiological stability. In other words, what is the mechanism which regulates homeostasis and allostasis and/or what is the relationship between genotype and the influence of the environment (phenotype)? Despite the immense amount of publicity given to the huge increases in the occurrence of the most common lifestyle related ailments (e.g. diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancers, Alzheimer’s disease, etc) which have occurred in recent years; most people in the world still have relatively normal levels of body weight and remain free from medical problems during their lifetimes, at least until their advancing years when their body is increasingly less able to maintain its normal regulated function. This article considers whether it is now possible to understand the nature, structure and function of this regulatory mechanism in far more detail than has hitherto been possible. This neuroregulatory mechanism involves the influence of light upon brain function and hence upon the autonomic nervous system and physiological systems. There is a particular emphasis in this article upon the regulation of Blood Glucose and how Acidity plays a significant role in diabetes etiology. Finally, the article introduces a Mathematical Model of the Autonomic Nervous System and/or the Physiological Systems (developed by Dr IG Grakov) which has been incorporated into a commercialised technology which is based upon the concepts outlined.