id: 05648715
dt: j
an: 05648715
au: Moss, Rob; Kazmierczak, Ed; Kirley, Michael; Harris, Peter
ti: Discrete network models of interacting nephrons.
so: Physica D 238, No. 22, 2166-2176 (2009).
py: 2009
pu: Elsevier Science B.V. (North-Holland), Amsterdam
la: EN
cc: 
ut: nonlinear dynamical systems; renal modelling; nephron; network model
ci: 
li: doi:10.1016/j.physd.2009.08.015
ab: Summary: The kidney is one of the major organs involved in whole-body
    homeostasis, and exhibits many of the properties of a complex system.
    The functional unit of the kidney is the nephron, a complex, segmented
    tube into which blood plasma is filtered and its composition adjusted.
    Although the behaviour of individual nephrons can fluctuate widely and
    even chaotically, the behaviour of the kidney remains stable. We
    investigate how the filtration rate of a multi-nephron system is
    affected by interactions between nephrons. We introduce a discrete-time
    multi-nephron network model. The tubular mechanisms that have the
    greatest effect on filtration rate are the transport of sodium and
    water, consequently our model attempts to capture these mechanisms.
    Multi-nephron systems also incorporate two competing coupling
    mechanisms-vascular and hemodynamic-that enforce in-phase and
    anti-phase synchronisations respectively. Using a two-nephron model, we
    demonstrate how changing the strength of the hemodynamic coupling
    mechanism and changing the arterial blood pressure have equivalent
    effects on the system. The same two-nephron system is then used to
    demonstrate the interactions that arise between the two coupling
    mechanisms. We conclude by arguing that our approach is scalable to
    large numbers of nephrons, based on the performance characteristics of
    the model.
rv: