Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling最新文献

{"title":"Novel neural network application for bacterial colony classification.","authors":"Lei Huang,&nbsp;Tong Wu","doi":"10.1186/s12976-018-0093-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12976-018-0093-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Bacterial colony morphology is the first step of classifying the bacterial species before sending them to subsequent identification process with devices, such as VITEK 2 automated system and mass spectrometry microbial identification system. It is essential as a pre-screening process because it can greatly reduce the scope of possible bacterial species and will make the subsequent identification more specific and increase work efficiency in clinical bacteriology. But this work needs adequate clinical laboratory expertise of bacterial colony morphology, which is especially difficult for beginners to handle properly. This study presents automatic programs for bacterial colony classification task, by applying the deep convolutional neural networks (CNN), which has a widespread use of digital imaging data analysis in hospitals. The most common 18 bacterial colony classes from Peking University First Hospital were used to train this framework, and other images out of these training dataset were utilized to test the performance of this classifier.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The feasibility of this framework was verified by the comparison between predicted result and standard bacterial category. The classification accuracy of all 18 bacteria can reach 73%, and the accuracy and specificity of each kind of bacteria can reach as high as 90%.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The supervised neural networks we use can have more promising classification characteristics for bacterial colony pre-screening process, and the unsupervised network should have more advantages in revealing novel characteristics from pictures, which can provide some practical indications to our clinical staffs.</p>","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12976-018-0093-x","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36628918","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mathematical model of the life cycle of taenia-cysticercosis: transmission dynamics and chemotherapy (Part 1).","authors":"Marco V José,&nbsp;Juan R Bobadilla,&nbsp;Norma Y Sánchez-Torres,&nbsp;Juan Pedro Laclette","doi":"10.1186/s12976-018-0090-0","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s12976-018-0090-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Taenia solium is the aetiological agent of human taeniasis, pig cysticercosis and human neurocysticercosis, which are serious public health problems, especially in developing countries.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>A mathematical model of the transmission dynamics of taeniasis-cysticercosis is formulated. The model consists of a coupled system of differential equations, which are density-dependent equations for describing the flow of the parasite through the life cycle. The model is hybrid since it comprises deterministic equations with stochastic elements which describe changes in the mean parasite burden and incorporates the overall pattern of the parasites' distribution.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Sensitivity and bifurcation analyses were carried out to determine the range of values of the model. The model can reproduce the observed epidemiological patterns of human taeniasis, pig and human cysticercosis. For example, for a wide range of parameter values, the mean intensity of adult worms tends to rapidly stabilize in one parasite per individual host. From this model, we also derived a Susceptible-Infected model to describe the prevalence of infection in humans and pigs. Chemotherapeutic interventions against pig cysticercosis or human taeniasis may reduce rapidly and effectively the mean intensity of human taeniasis, pig cysticercosis and human cysticercosis. This effect can be achieved even if the protective efficacy of the drug is of the order of 90% and the coverage rate is 90%. This means that health in humans infected either with adult worms or cysticerci may be achieved by the application of anthelmintic drugs against pig cysticercosis. However, treatment against human cysticercosis alone, does not influence neither human teniasis nor pig cysticercosis. This is because human cysticercosis infection does not influence the value of the basic reproductive number (Ro).</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Even coverage of 100% in the administration of anthelmintics did not eliminate the infection. Then elimination of the infection in all hosts does not seem a feasible goal to achieve by administering only chemotherapeutic interventions. Throughout the manuscript a discussion of our model in the context of other models of taeniasis-cysticercosis is presented.</p>","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12976-018-0090-0","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36693164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A modified particle swarm optimization algorithm for parameter estimation of a biological system.","authors":"Raziyeh Mosayebi,&nbsp;Fariba Bahrami","doi":"10.1186/s12976-018-0089-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12976-018-0089-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Mathematical modeling has achieved a broad interest in the field of biology. These models represent the associations among the metabolism of the biological phenomenon with some mathematical equations such that the observed time course profile of the biological data fits the model. However, the estimation of the unknown parameters of the model is a challenging task. Many algorithms have been developed for parameter estimation, but none of them is entirely capable of finding the best solution. The purpose of this paper is to develop a method for precise estimation of parameters of a biological model.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>In this paper, a novel particle swarm optimization algorithm based on a decomposition technique is developed. Then, its root mean square error is compared with simple particle swarm optimization, Iterative Unscented Kalman Filter and Simulated Annealing algorithms for two different simulation scenarios and a real data set related to the metabolism of CAD system.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Our proposed algorithm results in 54.39% and 26.72% average reduction in root mean square error when applied to the simulation and experimental data, respectively.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>The results show that the metaheuristic approaches such as the proposed method are very wise choices for finding the solution of nonlinear problems with many unknown parameters.</p>","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12976-018-0089-6","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36693204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Demographic supply-demand imbalance in industrial structure in the super-aged nation Japan.","authors":"Naoki Kishida,&nbsp;Hiroshi Nishiura","doi":"10.1186/s12976-018-0091-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12976-018-0091-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Japan has a rapidly decreasing population, with ultra-low fertility and extremely fast aging. The rapid dynamics constitute a warning that change in the industrial structure may be unable to meet the changing pace of age-dependent demand.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>The present study estimated the supply-demand imbalance by industrial sector, and we investigated the effectiveness of possible countermeasures. To quantify the demographic burden of different industry experts, we employed the dependency ratio to calculate the supply and demand of each industrial sector and occupation.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We identified an expected excess of demand in the health-care sector; the growth in that deficiency is likely to continue until 2045, when the elderly population is likely to reach a peak. By contrast, oversupply is expected in the education and construction sectors. An overall shortage of full-time workers is likely to continue until 2050, when we predict that Japan will lack 3.1-9.3 million full-time workers to satisfy the baseline demand level.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Considering that the imbalance is evident over different sectors, interministerial regulation of occupational choice may need to be imposed, e.g., by drastically changing student sizes in different area of higher education. Japan may have to decide to downgrade its social services and potentially consider increasing immigrant workers.</p>","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12976-018-0091-z","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36625274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Identification of influential proteins in the classical retinoic acid signaling pathway.","authors":"Hamed Ghaffari,&nbsp;Linda R Petzold","doi":"10.1186/s12976-018-0088-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12976-018-0088-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>In the classical pathway of retinoic acid (RA) mediated gene transcription, RA binds to a nuclear hormone receptor dimer composed of retinoic acid receptor (RAR) and retinoid X receptor (RXR), to induce the expression of its downstream target genes. In addition to nuclear receptors, there are other intracellular RA binding proteins such as cellular retinoic acid binding proteins (CRABP1 and CRABP2) and cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes, whose contributions to the RA signaling pathway have not been fully understood. The objective of this study was to compare the significance of various RA binding receptors, i.e. CRABP1, CRABP2, CYP and RAR in the RA signaling pathway. In this regard, we developed a mathematical model of the RA pathway, which is one of the few models, if not the only one, that includes all main intracellular RA binding receptors. We then performed a global sensitivity analysis (GSA) to investigate the contribution of the RA receptors to RA-induced mRNA production, when the cells were treated with a wide range of RA levels, from physiological to pharmacological concentrations.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Our results show that CRABP2 and RAR are the most and the least important proteins, respectively, in controlling the model performance at physiological concentrations of RA (1-10 nM). However, at higher concentrations of RA, CYP and RAR are the most sensitive parameters of the system. Furthermore, we found that depending on the concentrations of all RA binding proteins, the rate of metabolism of RA can either change or remain constant following RA therapy. The cellular levels of CRABP1 are more important than that of CRABP2 in controlling RA metabolite formation at pharmacological conditions (RA = 0.1-1 μM). Finally, our results indicate a significant negative correlation between total mRNA production and total RA metabolite formation at pharmacological levels of RA.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Our simulations indicate that the significance of the RA binding proteins in the RA pathway of gene expression strongly depends on intracellular concentration of RA. This study not only can explain why various cell types respond to RA therapy differently, but also can potentially help develop pharmacological methods to increase the efficacy of the drug.</p>","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12976-018-0088-7","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36586960","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Numerical simulation of embryo transfer: how the viscosity of transferred medium affects the transport of embryos.","authors":"Dali Ding,&nbsp;Weiping Shi,&nbsp;Yang Shi","doi":"10.1186/s12976-018-0092-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12976-018-0092-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Embryo transfer (ET) is a key step of assisted reproductive procedures, where the transferred medium containing the embryos is injected into the uterine cavity through a transcervical catheter and blended with intrauterine fluid in the uterine cavity. This procedure determines the delivery sites of embryos in the uterine cavity and has crucial impact on the implantation. Due to practical restrictions and ethical issues, it is often difficult to perform an in vivo study in humans to examine factors that affect the motions and delivery of embryos during ET. Alternatively, mathematical modeling is a powerful tool to that end.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>A computational model is developed to simulate the intrauterine mixing flow and track the embryo motions. Two important factors affecting the intrauterine flow are studied via this model: the viscosity of the transferred medium and the injection speed. Numerical results show that the dispersion pattern and the final delivery sites of the embryos are significantly influenced by the viscosity of the transferred medium. Specially, increasing the transferred medium viscosity close to that of the uterine fluid can enhance the probability that the embryos are delivered close to the fundus and keep them from being dragged backward to the cervix during catheter withdrawal. In addition, a slow injection speed can lower the driving force on the embryo during ET, which can prevent the embryo from being injured.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Based on our study, the practice of using a transferred medium with similar viscosity to that of the uterine fluid and a slow injection speed is recommended for real embryo transfer procedures in clinic.</p>","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12976-018-0092-y","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36602066","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Osmotic and diffusive flows in single-file pores: new approach to modeling pore occupancy states.","authors":"Gordon Kepner","doi":"10.1186/s12976-018-0087-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12976-018-0087-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>The relation between osmotic permeability, P_f, diffusion permeability, P_d, and the number of water molecules, N_p, in the single-file membrane pore remains an open question. Theoretical analyses, empirical studies on aquaporins and nanotubes, and molecular dynamics simulations have yet to provide a consensus view.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>This paper presents a new combinatorial analysis of the different pore states formed from water molecules and the presence of a vacancy that differs from the several previous combinatorial approaches to analyzing pore states. It is the first such analysis to show that P_f / P_d = N_p. It is rooted in the concept of different classes of pore occupancy states, tracer states and tracer exit states, present in the pore. This includes pores with and without a single vacancy. The concepts of knock-on collisions and concerted Brownian fluctuations provide the mechanisms underlying the behaviors of the tracer and vacancy as each moves through the pore during osmotic or diffusive flow. It develops the important role of the knock-on collision mechanism for osmotic flow. An essential feature of the model is the presence, or absence, of a single vacancy in the pore. The vacancy slows down tracer translocation through the pore. Its absence facilitates osmotic flow.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The full pore states and the single vacancy states together with the knock-on and Brownian mechanisms account for the relative values of P_f and P_d during osmotic and diffusive flow through the single-file pore. The new approach to combinatorial analysis differs from previous approaches and is the first to show a simple intuitive basis for the relation P_f / P_d = N_p. This resolves a long persisting dichotomy.</p>","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12976-018-0087-8","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36532729","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Modern and traditional approaches combined into an effective gray-box mathematical model of full-blood acid-base.","authors":"Filip Ježek,&nbsp;Jiří Kofránek","doi":"10.1186/s12976-018-0086-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12976-018-0086-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>The acidity of human body fluids, expressed by the pH, is physiologically regulated in a narrow range, which is required for the proper function of cellular metabolism. Acid-base disorders are common especially in intensive care, and the acid-base status is one of the vital clinical signs for the patient management. Because acid-base balance is connected to many bodily processes and regulations, complex mathematical models are needed to get insight into the mixed disorders and to act accordingly. The goal of this study is to develop a full-blood acid-base model, designed to be further integrated into more complex human physiology models.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We have developed computationally simple and robust full-blood model, yet thorough enough to cover most of the common pathologies. Thanks to its simplicity and usage of Modelica language, it is suitable to be embedded within more elaborate systems. We achieved the simplification by a combination of behavioral Siggaard-Andersen's traditional approach for erythrocyte modeling and the mechanistic Stewart's physicochemical approach for plasma modeling. The resulting model is capable of providing variations in arterial pCO2, base excess, strong ion difference, hematocrit, plasma protein, phosphates and hemodilution/hemoconcentration, but insensitive to DPG and CO concentrations.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This study presents a straightforward unification of Siggaard-Andersen's and Stewart's acid-base models. The resulting full-blood acid-base model is designed to be a core part of a complex dynamic whole-body acid-base and gas transfer model.</p>","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12976-018-0086-9","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36475232","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A conceptual model for optimizing vaccine coverage to reduce vector-borne infections in the presence of antibody-dependent enhancement.","authors":"Biao Tang,&nbsp;Xi Huo,&nbsp;Yanni Xiao,&nbsp;Shigui Ruan,&nbsp;Jianhong Wu","doi":"10.1186/s12976-018-0085-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12976-018-0085-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Many vector-borne diseases co-circulate, as the viruses from the same family are also transmitted by the same vector species. For example, Zika and dengue viruses belong to the same Flavivirus family and are primarily transmitted by a common mosquito species Aedes aegypti. Zika outbreaks have also commonly occurred in dengue-endemic areas, and co-circulation and co-infection of both viruses have been reported. As recent immunological cross-reactivity studies have confirmed that convalescent plasma following dengue infection can enhance Zika infection, and as global efforts of developing dengue and Zika vaccines are intensified, it is important to examine whether and how vaccination against one disease in a large population may affect infection dynamics of another disease due to antibody-dependent enhancement.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Through a conceptual co-infection dynamics model parametrized by reported dengue and Zika epidemic and immunological cross-reactivity characteristics, we evaluate impact of a hypothetical dengue vaccination program on Zika infection dynamics in a single season when only one particular dengue serotype is involved.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We show that an appropriately designed and optimized dengue vaccination program can not only help control the dengue spread but also, counter-intuitively, reduce Zika infections. We identify optimal dengue vaccination coverages for controlling dengue and simultaneously reducing Zika infections, as well as the critical coverages exceeding which dengue vaccination will increase Zika infections.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>This study based on a conceptual model shows the promise of an integrative vector-borne disease control strategy involving optimal vaccination programs, in regions where different viruses or different serotypes of the same virus co-circulate, and convalescent plasma following infection from one virus (serotype) can enhance infection against another virus (serotype). The conceptual model provides a first step towards well-designed regional and global vector-borne disease immunization programs.</p>","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12976-018-0085-x","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36454755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Application of Bayesian evidence synthesis to modelling the effect of ketogenic therapy on survival of high grade glioma patients.","authors":"Rainer J Klement,&nbsp;Prasanta S Bandyopadhyay,&nbsp;Colin E Champ,&nbsp;Harald Walach","doi":"10.1186/s12976-018-0084-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12976-018-0084-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Ketogenic therapy in the form of ketogenic diets or calorie restriction has been proposed as a metabolic treatment of high grade glioma (HGG) brain tumors based on mechanistic reasoning obtained mainly from animal experiments. Given the paucity of clinical studies of this relatively new approach, our goal is to extrapolate evidence from the greater number of animal studies and synthesize it with the available human data in order to estimate the expected effects of ketogenic therapy on survival in HGG patients. At the same time we are using this analysis as an example for demonstrating how Bayesianism can be applied in the spirit of a circular view of evidence.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>A Bayesian hierarchical model was developed. Data from three human cohort studies and 17 animal experiments were included to estimate the effects of four ketogenic interventions (calorie restriction/ketogenic diets as monotherapy/combination therapy) on the restricted mean survival time ratio in humans using various assumptions for the relationships between humans, rats and mice. The impact of different biological assumptions about the relevance of animal data for humans as well as external information based on mechanistic reasoning or case studies was evaluated by specifying appropriate priors. We provide statistical and philosophical arguments for why our approach is an improvement over existing (frequentist) methods for evidence synthesis as it is able to utilize evidence from a variety of sources. Depending on the prior assumptions, a 30-70% restricted mean survival time prolongation in HGG patients was predicted by the models. The highest probability of a benefit (> 90%) for all four ketogenic interventions was obtained when adopting an enthusiastic prior based on previous case reports together with assuming synergism between ketogenic therapies with other forms of treatment. Combinations with other treatments were generally found more effective than ketogenic monotherapy.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Combining evidence from both human and animal studies is statistically possible using a Bayesian approach. We found an overall survival-prolonging effect of ketogenic therapy in HGG patients. Our approach is best compatible with a circular instead of hierarchical view of evidence and easy to update once more data become available.</p>","PeriodicalId":51195,"journal":{"name":"Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1186/s12976-018-0084-y","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"36410119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}