Mattia Corti and Paola Antonietti in their office. Credit: Politecnico di Milano
Alzheimer's disease is not only about the accumulation of toxic proteins in the brain. A growing number of studies indicate that the health of cerebral blood vessels may also play a decisive role in the onset and progression of the disease. A reduction in blood flow, vascular damage and the accumulation of amyloid beta, one of the key proteins associated with Alzheimer's, in fact feed into one another in a pathological cycle.
This hypothesis has led to a new "whole-brain" mathematical and computational model developed at the MOX Laboratory of the Department of Mathematics at Politecnico di Milano. The model is designed to describe in an integrated way the interaction between the spread of amyloid beta and the functioning of the cerebral vascular network.
The aim is to provide a tool capable of simulating, on the scale of the whole organ, how small biological or vascular alterations can evolve over time and contribute to neurodegeneration. The model and the accompanying scientific study have been published in Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering.
The model integrates two scales of analysis. On the one hand, it describes the dynamics of the production, transformation, diffusion and elimination of healthy and pathological forms of amyloid beta.
