Gur Aryeh
Research Institute
Complexity Networks Emergence
Adaptive Persistence
Fibromyalgia: Neuroimmune Dynamics and Recovery
Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition characterized by widespread pain, fatigue, and sleep disturbances, whose underlying mechanisms remain incompletely understood.
We investigate whether persistent pathological states may emerge from nonlinear interactions among neural sensitization, immune signaling, and physiological adaptation.
Using mathematical modeling and computational simulations, we seek to understand how these states arise, persist, and potentially reverse.
Key Research Questions
1.Neuroimmune Persistence
Can nonlinear feedback between neural sensitization and immune signaling generate persistent pathological states after the original trigger disappears? What mechanisms might sustain heightened pain sensitivity over time?
2. Biological Memory
Could physiological adaptation, biological memory, and hysteresis explain why fibromyalgia symptoms persist? Under what conditions might these mechanisms stabilize a pathological neuroimmune state?
3. Recovery Conditions
What conditions could allow a neuroimmune system to transition from persistent sensitization toward a stable physiological state? Could changes in feedback strength or biological memory facilitate recovery?
Research Approach
Minimal Modeling
Develop reduced mathematical models of coupled neural and immune activity, incorporating nonlinear feedback, activation thresholds, and different physiological timescales. Introduce slow variables representing biological adaptation and memory.
Dynamical Analysis
Analyze equilibrium states, stability, bifurcations, and possible pathological attractors. Investigate whether the models exhibit bistability, hysteresis, and critical thresholds governing the persistence and reversal of sensitization.
Computational Simulations
Simulate transient and repeated disturbances to investigate persistent sensitization and potential recovery. Compare alternative mechanisms and progressively extend the models toward stochastic dynamics and interacting networks.
Current Status and Collaboration
The project is developing a theoretical framework and minimal mathematical models to investigate neuroimmune interactions, persistent sensitization, biological memory, and recovery. Stability analysis and computational simulations are the next research milestones.
Interested in collaborating?
We welcome researchers in nonlinear dynamics, mathematical biology, neuroscience, neuroimmunology, and pain medicine to contribute to theoretical modeling and future empirical investigations.