{"title":"Exploring tau protein and amyloid-beta propagation: a sensitivity analysis of mathematical models based on biological data.","authors":"Mattia Corti","doi":"","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Alzheimer's disease is the most common dementia worldwide. Its pathological development is well known to be connected with the accumulation of two toxic proteins: tau protein and amyloid-$\\beta$. Mathematical models and numerical simulations can predict the spreading patterns of misfolded proteins in this context. However, the calibration of the model parameters plays a crucial role in the final solution. In this work, we perform a sensitivity analysis of heterodimer and Fisher-Kolmogorov models to evaluate the impact of the equilibrium values of protein concentration on the solution patterns. We adopt advanced numerical methods such as the IMEX-DG method to accurately describe the propagating fronts in the propagation phenomena in a polygonal mesh of sagittal patient-specific brain geometry derived from magnetic resonance images. We calibrate the model parameters using biological measurements in the brain cortex for the tau protein and the amyloid-$\\beta$ in Alzheimer's patients and controls. Finally, using the sensitivity analysis results, we discuss the applicability of both models in the correct simulation of the spreading of the two proteins.</p>","PeriodicalId":93888,"journal":{"name":"ArXiv","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11071616/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"ArXiv","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Alzheimer's disease is the most common dementia worldwide. Its pathological development is well known to be connected with the accumulation of two toxic proteins: tau protein and amyloid-$\beta$. Mathematical models and numerical simulations can predict the spreading patterns of misfolded proteins in this context. However, the calibration of the model parameters plays a crucial role in the final solution. In this work, we perform a sensitivity analysis of heterodimer and Fisher-Kolmogorov models to evaluate the impact of the equilibrium values of protein concentration on the solution patterns. We adopt advanced numerical methods such as the IMEX-DG method to accurately describe the propagating fronts in the propagation phenomena in a polygonal mesh of sagittal patient-specific brain geometry derived from magnetic resonance images. We calibrate the model parameters using biological measurements in the brain cortex for the tau protein and the amyloid-$\beta$ in Alzheimer's patients and controls. Finally, using the sensitivity analysis results, we discuss the applicability of both models in the correct simulation of the spreading of the two proteins.