Related papers: Immune Network: An Example of Complex Adaptive Sys…
The clonal selection principle explains the basic features of an adaptive immune response to a antigenic stimulus. It established the idea that only those cells that recognize the antigens are selected to proliferate and differentiate. This…
The evolution of the adaptive immune system is characterized by changes in the relative abundances of the B- and T-cell clones that make up its repertoires. To fully capture this evolution, we need to describe the complex dynamics of the…
The similarity between neural and immune networks has been known for decades, but so far we did not understand the mechanism that allows the immune system, unlike associative neural networks, to recall and execute a large number of…
This paper deals with a new model for clonal network dynamics. We describe in detail this model and derive special equations governing immune system dynamics based on the general gradient type principles that can be inherent to a wide class…
The adaptive immune system of vertebrates can detect, respond to, and memorize diverse pathogens from past experience. While the clonal selection of T helper (Th) cells is the simple and established mechanism to better recognize new…
Understanding and modelling the complexity of the immune system is a challenge that is shared by the ImmunoComplexiT$^1$ thematic network from the RNSC. The immune system is a complex biological, adaptive, highly diversified, self-organized…
We argue that immune system is an adaptive complex system. It is shown that it has emergent properties. Its network structure is of the small world network type. The network is of the threshold type, which helps in avoiding autoimmunity. It…
The adaptive immune system provides a diverse set of molecules that can mount specific responses against a multitude of pathogens. Memory is a key feature of adaptive immunity, which allows organisms to respond more readily upon…
A model of bit-strings, that uses the technique of multi-spin coding, was previously used to study the time evolution of B-cell clone repertoire, in a paper by Lagreca, Almeida and Santos. In this work we extend that simplified model to…
Some years ago a cellular automata model was proposed to describe the evolution of the immune repertoire of B cells and antibodies based on Jerne's immune network theory and shape-space formalism. Here we investigate if the networks…
In this paper, after a telegraphic introduction to modern immunology, we present a simple model for the idiotypic network among antibodies and we study its relevance for the maintenance of immunological memory. We also consider the problem…
The immune system can be thought as a complex network of different interacting elements. A cellular automaton, defined in shape-space, was recently shown to exhibit self-regulation and complex behavior and is, therefore, a good candidate to…
The biological immune system is a robust, complex, adaptive system that defends the body from foreign pathogens. It is able to categorize all cells (or molecules) within the body as self-cells or non-self cells. It does this with the help…
In order to target threatening pathogens, the adaptive immune system performs a continuous reorganization of its lymphocyte repertoire. Following an immune challenge, the B cell repertoire can evolve cells of increased specificity for the…
A hallmark of the adaptive immune response is the proliferation of pathogen-specific lymphocytes that leave in their wake a long lived population of cells that provide lasting immunity. A subject of ongoing investigation is when during an…
The immune system is a cognitive system of complexity comparable to the brain and its computational algorithms suggest new solutions to engineering problems or new ways of looking at these problems. Using immunological principles, a two (or…
Fundamental to quantitative characterization of the B cell receptor repertoire is clonal diversity - the number of distinct somatically recombined receptors present in the repertoire and their relative abundances, defining the search space…
We consider the mutual interactions, via cytokine exchanges, among helper lymphocytes, B lymphocytes and killer lymphocytes, and we model them as a unique system by means of a tripartite network. Each part includes all the different clones…
The biological immune system is a robust, complex, adaptive system that defends the body from foreign pathogens. It is able to categorize all cells (or molecules) within the body as self or non-self substances. It does this with the help of…
The biological immune system is a robust, complex, adaptive system that defends the body from foreign pathogens. It is able to categorize all cells (or molecules) within the body as self-cells or non-self cells. It does this with the help…