Biological age - 1

The following image depicts the relationship between CA structure and age. The dark image is a two dimensional age distribution of the  depicted CA.  First we plant a zygote whose age is zero (black),  It originates a process which includes all cells positioned along its  y-coordinate. Cells formed on both sides initiate new processes which proceed  along their y-coordinates. All cells along a y-coordinate belong to one process. Their rising age is represented by the brightening  shades of gray. Maximal age is depicted in white, whereupon the cell dies and its age becomes  black (= 0). The right graph depicts an age distribution at time =50.

The vertical lines in the 2-D age distribution highlight the fact that as a cell ages its structure varies. It may become white, gray or black. Structure is not correlated with age.

Context of a process

There is no correlation between structure and age. Each cell is characterized by two coordinates {structure(t), age(t)}. At first sight it may appear as if  two remote cells at a given time may have the same coordinates {structure(t), age(t)}. Even  so, their subsequent state will  differ,  since it depends also on the coordinates of their neighbors. We may distinguish between the coordinates of a process itself  {structure(t, x),  age(t, x) } and its context, which is provided by other processes e.g.,  {structure(t, x-i  ), age(t, x-i )} and {structure(t, x+i), age(t, x+i )}.

Process interaction

The following experiment demonstrates that all processes interact. CA1 serves as reference. At t = 40  CA2  was injured, and  its left border bit was set to zero. The next image is the 2-D age distribution of the injured CA2. Then,  the CA2 structure was subtracted from CA1. Finally CA2 age distribution was subtracted from CA1 (which is depicted above).

Perturbation propagation

The absolute CA difference indicates which parts of CA-2 changed after injury. Prior to t=40, both CA are identical and their difference is zero (white) . Following injury the nonwhite area spreads to the right and at t=70 it reaches the right border. It takes 30 time units for the perturbation to cover the entire CA.

Processes in the body interact even more, and  treatment affects them all.  Even a local treatment induces a perturbation which spreads out. Treatment always induces systemic changes. Medicine postulates that process interaction is insignificant and may be neglected, which may not be so.


Further reading:
Iatrogenic Medicine

Setup
injurystate[1, j, 20, f1, 2, 1]; injurystate[1, j, 40, f1, 1, 0];  effect[1, 25];

Previous page
Next page

Contents
Home