ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE: BIOLOGY, BIOPHYSICS AND COMPUTATIONAL MODELS

• Preface
• Introduction to Alzheimer’s Disease
• Neuron and Its Environment as Complex Dynamic Systems
• Initiation of Action Potential: Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Relevance to AD
• Computational Biophysics of Protein Interactions in the AIS
• Computational Modeling of Presynaptic Mechanisms
• Role of Calcium in AD, Related Pathways and Hypotheses
• Biophysics of Aß and Computational Modeling
• Computational Modeling of Fluxes in ER
• Dynamics of CaMKII under AD Conditions
• Quantification of Synaptic Plasticity Towards Better Understanding of AD
• Index

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the leading cause of dementia and, unfortunately, remains incurable. The social, emotional and financial implications of AD are immeasurable, and about 47 million people worldwide are affected by AD or other forms of dementia. As lifespans are improved by healthcare systems worldwide, age-associated neurodegenerative diseases are imposing an increasing challenge to science. It is becoming imperative for us to understand the causes of these diseases, AD in particular, at molecular and cellular levels. Starting with the broader picture from a biological perspective, this book takes the reader through fascinating dynamics within and outside of neurons in the brain.
Alzheimer’s Disease: Biology, Biophysics and Computational Models helps the reader to understand AD from mechanistic and biochemical perspectives at intra- and inter-cellular levels. It focuses on biochemical pathways and modeling associated with AD. Some of the recent research on biophysics and computational models related to AD are explained using context-driven computational and mathematical modeling and essential biology is discussed to understand the modeling research..
There is no single book in the market that deals with Alzheimer’s disease from multidisciplinary perspectives to bring about an in-depth understanding of the disease related systems and pathways in the brain. Hence this book will create a niche that is needed to understand one of the unsolved scientific challenges facing humanity: neurodegenerative diseases, especially Alzheimer’s disease

Authors
• Professor Don Kulasiri obtained his PhD specialising in Bioengineering and Computation from Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, USA. He had been a visiting professor to Stanford University, Princeton University, USA, and has been visiting Wolfson Centre for Mathematical Biology, Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, UK, regularly since 2008. He is the Professor in Computational Modeling and Systems Biology, a Personal Chair, at Lincoln University, Christchurch, New Zealand since 1999. He founded and heads the Centre for Advanced Computational Solutions (C-fACS) at Lincoln. He is a fellow of the Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand (MSSANZ). He has published over 175 publications, including four research monographs and one edited book. He has graduated over 55 PhD students, and 16 research masters students, over the last 30 years and currently supervise/co-supervise 15 PhD students. He has been a fellow of the NZ Centre at Peking University, Beijing, China, in 2018, visiting the Centre for Quantitative Biology at Peking University. His current research interests include computational and mathematical molecular systems biology; stochastic modelling of biological and environmental systems; bio-engineering (biotechnology); complex interactive dynamics and thermodynamics in small scale systems (mesoscopic scale, in between quantum and macro scales) and development of mathematics for such systems.
• Dr Jingyi Liang obtained her PhD in Computational Systems Biology at Lincoln University, New Zealand. She has been involved in research in the Centre of Advanced Computational Solutions (C-fACS) since 2011. She has been active in research in theoretical modeling research on tuberculosis in the Computational Pharmacology Group at the Department of Pharmacy, University of Tromsø, Norway since 2018 as a research fellow. She has been a visiting scholar to the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University, USA since 2019. Her current research interests are modeling and simulation of biological reactions/systems and mathematical and statistical analyses, and applying mathematical approaches to pathological and pharmacological studies of diseases.