Graph Theory for Medicine
Emrullah YiÄŸit
Mehmet Efe Zengin
Healthy human organisms have almost the same body temperatures. We always have balanced sugar levels no matter what we eat instantly. Regarding those fixed values, our bodies work. That is called homeostasis as a biological phenomenon. Malfunction of these regulations could result in diseases or even in deaths. As a language of nature, mathematics would also help us to model something numerically to understand how homeostasis works and prevent diseases if we know the “why.” In American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting, people who know math and science argued on the math behind the homeostasis to contribute to the medicine. The researchers from MBI and the other institutions created a model to show it visually. There was a really important requirement that the model should adapt for each organism since humans have different structures. At the heart of this model, there is a graph that summarizes the development of mathematical visualization. While graph explains how dopamine or some other hormones are regulated, graph theory contributes to the study with the properties of this modelled structures. Changes on this model can give clues on the regulation of hormones. Using mathematical calculations always helps science.
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References
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Arenschield, Laura. “Graph Theory Helps Biologists Study Homeostasis.” Phys.org, Phys.org, 3 Mar. 2021, phys.org/news/2021-03-graph-theory-biologists-homeostasis.html.