corner
corner
APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 81 » Issue 14
< Previous Article | Next Article >

Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 3034–3037 (1998)

Immunization and Aging: A Learning Process in the Immune Network

Download: PDF (107 kB) Buy this article Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

Rita Maria Zorzenon dos Santos*
Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Av. Litorânea, s/n-Boa Viagem, 24210-340, Niterói-RJ, Brazil

Américo T. Bernardes†
Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto, Campus do Morro do Cruzeiro, 35400-000, Ouro Preto-MG, Brazil

Received 7 October 1997; published in the issue dated 5 October 1998

The immune system can be thought of as a complex network of different interacting elements. A cellular automaton, defined in shape space, was recently shown to exhibit self-regulation and complex behavior and is, therefore, a good candidate to model the immune system. Using this model to simulate a real immune system we find good agreement with recent experiments on mice. The model exhibits the experimentally observed refractory behavior of the immune system under multiple antigen presentations as well as loss of its plasticity caused by aging.

© 1998 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.3034
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.81.3034
PACS:
87.10.+e, 02.70.Lq, 05.45.+b, 87.22.As

*Electronic address: zorzenon@if.uff.br

†Electronic address: atb@iceb.ufop.br

 
< Previous Article | Next Article >