UAlberta Math Biology Seminar: Thomas Hillen

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune diseases that affects the central nervous system (CNS). It can lead to inflammation, neurodegeneration and physical or cognitive disability. To date, no cure for MS exists, but medications are available to slow its progression. The mathematical modelling of MS has focussed on a few aspects of the disease, but an overall modelling framework is missing. In this paper, we propose a new paradigm for the mathematical modelling of MS. Based on biological principles we propose six consecutive modelling levels. We develop models on Level 1,2, and 3, and test if these models can describe known effects related to MS. We first show that periodic disease outbreaks are possible in this framework. We show that presence of Epstein-Barr virus infections can initiate the disease, low levels of estrogen and vitamin D can alleviate it, mutations in the HLA-DR gene can promote MS, and we find that memory B-cells play a dominant role in the disease progression.