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Editorial
. 2021 Jun 30:1:711778.
doi: 10.3389/fnetp.2021.711778. eCollection 2021.

The New Field of Network Physiology: Building the Human Physiolome

Plamen Ch Ivanov  1   2   3
Affiliations
Editorial

The New Field of Network Physiology: Building the Human Physiolome

Plamen Ch Ivanov. Front Netw Physiol. .
No abstract available

Keywords: AI; big data; complex systems; control; dynamic networks; human physiolome; network physiology; sensory networks.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Complex structural and functional networks underlie the dynamics and mechanisms of regulation across spatial and temporal scales in multi-component physiological and organ systems. (A) Heart: vascular network and conducting network of Purkinje dendrites embedded in the myocardial muscle. (B) Lungs: airways and vascular networks from the bronchial tree to a single alveolus. (C) Kidney: vascular network revealing cortex structure at large scales, nephrons at intermediate scales and single glomeruli at small scales. (D) Brain: diffusion tensor image of connectivity micro-structure networks showing the location, orientation, and anisotropy of white matter tracts; vascular networks; and neuronal population networks representing levels of activation for individual neural cells from real time electron microscope imaging.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
The human organism is an integrated network where diverse physiological and organ systems continuously interact to optimize and coordinate their functions. (A) Network interactions across spatial levels and temporal scales within systems and among systems are essential to generate various physiological states and to maintain health. (B) A fundamental question in Network Physiology is how physiological states and functions emerge out of vertical and horizontal network integration from the sub-cellular to the organism level.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
A new field, Network Physiology, has emerged, shifting the focus from single organ systems to the network of physiologic interactions with the aim to uncover basic laws of communication and principles of integration in networks of diverse physiological systems and their role in generating global behaviors at the organism level.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
The human body generates continuous streams of physiological signals as output dynamics of various systems and physiological parameters that contain a wealth of information about the state of individual systems and the nature of their network interactions. (A) In 24 h just one hundred basic physiologic parameters recorded with 100 Hz generate 109–1010 data points, of the same order as the number of nucleotides in the human genome. (B) Novel methods and approaches within the framework of Network Physiology aim to establish associations between distinct physiologic states and pathological conditions with the structure and dynamics in physiological networks, and thus, lay the foundations of the Human Physiolome, a first of a kind Big Data of blueprint reference network maps representing states and conditions through network interactions across levels in the human body.
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Developments in Network Physiology will revolutionize our knowledge and understanding of the principles underlying systems’ communications and their integration as a network, and the mechanisms that coordinate and control organ-to-organ interactions. (A) Current technological advances and findings of association between physiologic networks structure and dynamics with physiological function open the horizon to develop a new kind of Big Data and build the Human Physiolome — a dynamic atlas of network maps representing physiologic interactions across levels and systems in the human body under health and disease. (B) A broad range of applications will follow: novel network-based biomarkers and taxonomy of disease; next generation integrated biomedical devices and sensor networks to facilitate prediction of critical events and guide treatment strategies; comprehensive assessment of drugs effects not only on individual systems but also on the interactions among systems; personalized health monitoring; new educational and training tools for physicians and clinicians.
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