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The fourth Oxford Conference entitled "Control of Breathing: A Model ing Perspective" was held in September of 1988 at Grand Lake, Colorado. Grand Lake, also called Spirit Lake, was chosen for the fourth meet i ng so as to continue the meditative atmosphere of the previ ous meetings and to put the conference on a new higher plane (8,500 feet). The weather, as promised, exhibited its random-like rain showers. The snow report became essential for traveling the 12,000 foot passes to and from Grand Lake. Even the servi ces such as telephone and elect ri city proved to be uncertain. In all, the overall atmosphere of Spirit Lake contributed to an uninhibited free-style of presentation and interact...
The field of neural control of breathing has advanced rapidly in the past two decades, with the emergence of many new and promising research directions of increasing sophistication. The complexity and diversity of the current methodologies signify its remarkable vivacity, albeit at the price of much confusion. Captured in this book are the broad and intricate nature of the field and its multifaceted frontiers, including aspects of genetics, cell and molecular biology, comparative biology, neurophysiology, neurochemistry, neuroanatomy, imaging, human physiology in health and disease, and influence of environmental factors. Major topics include chemosensitivity, respiratory sensation, respiratory neurons, rhythmogenesis, plasticity, development, chemoreflex and exercise, respiratory instability and variability with behavioral and sleep states, etc., which are systematically laid out in the book for easy referencing.
Chaos theory deals with the description of motion (in a general sense) which cannot be predicted in the long term although produced by deterministic system, as well exemplified by meteorological phenomena. It directly comes from the Lunar theory — a three-body problem — and the difficulty encountered by astronomers to accurately predict the long-term evolution of the Moon using “Newtonian” mechanics. Henri Poincaré's deep intuitions were at the origin of chaos theory. They also led the meteorologist Edward Lorenz to draw the first chaotic attractor ever published. But the main idea consists of plotting a curve representative of the system evolution rather than finding an analytical solution as commonly done in classical mechanics. Such a novel approach allows the description of population interactions and the solar activity as well. Using the original sources, the book draws on the history of the concepts underlying chaos theory from the 17th century to the last decade, and by various examples, show how general is this theory in a wide range of applications: meteorology, chemistry, populations, astrophysics, biomedicine, etc.
A modern quantitative study of lung mechanics, relating mathematical modeling and engineering principles to lung function, structure, mechanics, and disease.
In an important new contribution to the literature of chaos, two distinguished researchers in the field of physiology probe central theoretical questions about physiological rhythms. Topics discussed include: How are rhythms generated? How do they start and stop? What are the effects of perturbation of the rhythms? How are oscillations organized in space? Leon Glass and Michael Mackey address an audience of biological scientists, physicians, physical scientists, and mathematicians, but the work assumes no knowledge of advanced mathematics. Variation of rhythms outside normal limits, or appearance of new rhythms where none existed previously, are associated with disease. One of the most interesting features of the book is that it makes a start at explaining "dynamical diseases" that are not the result of infection by pathogens but that stem from abnormalities in the timing of essential functions. From Clocks to Chaos provides a firm foundation for understanding dynamic processes in physiology.
Experimentalists tend to revel in the complexity and multidimensionality of biological processes. Modelers, on the other hand, generally look towards parsimony as a guiding prin ciple in their approach to understanding physiological systems. It is therefore not surprising that a substantial degree of miscommunication and misunderstanding still exists between the two groups of truth-seekers. However, there have been numerous instances in physiology where the marriage of mathematical modeling and experimentation has led to powerful in sights into the mechanisms being studied. Respiratory control represents one area in which this kind of cross-pollination has proven particularly fruitful. While...
Post Genomic Perspectives in Modeling and Control of Breathing is comprised of the proceedings of the IXth Oxford Conference on Modeling and Control of Breathing, held September 13-16, 2003 in Paris, France. This publication is placed within the general framework of post-genomic neurobiology, pathology, and the precise example of the rhythmic respiratory neural assembly being used to understand how genetic networks have been selected and conserved in the vertebrate brain. Specific topics include: ion channels and synapses responsible for respiratory rhythmogenesis and plasticity; pre- and post-natal development of the respiratory rhythm; chemosensory transduction and chemo-afferent signalling. These valuable insights open new avenues as to why the genetic codes underlying a vital function such as breathing have been selected, conserved, or optimized during evolution – a major issue of post-genomic biology. This critical issue will be considered from both top-down and bottom-up integrative modeling standpoints, with a view to elucidating the functional genomics linking discrete molecules to the integrated system that regulates breathing.
In recent years experimental and numerical studies have shown that chaos is a widespread phenomenon throughout the biological hierarchy ranging from simple enzyme reactions to ecosystems. Although a coherent picture of the fundamental mechanisms responsible for chaotic dynamics has started to appear it is not yet clear what the implications of such dynamics are for biological systems in general. In some systems it appears that chaotic dynamics are associated with a pathological condi tion. In other systems the pathological condition has regular periodic dynamics whilst the normal non-pathological condition has chaotic dyna mics. Since chaotic behaviour is so ubiquitous in nature and since th...