Organizers:
Dirk Hoyer, PhD (Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany)  and
Jean Clairambault, PhD, MD (INRIA Rocquencourt, France)

Wednesday, August 30, 2006, 1.00 p.m. to 5.30 p.m.

Speakers:
Francis Lévi, MD, PhD, INSERM, Villejuif, France
Björn Lemmer, MD, PhD, University of Heidelberg, Germany
Tyvin Rich, MD, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA
Jean Clairambault, PhD, MD, INRIA Paris, France
Maximilian Moser, MD, PhD, Medical University of Graz, Austria
Phyllis K. Stein, PhD, Washington University School of Medicine, USA
Plamen Ch. Ivanov, PhD, Boston University, USA
Dirk Hoyer, PhD, University of Jena, Germany
Aneta Stefanovska, PhD, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
Michael Rosenblum, PhD, University of Potsdam, Germany

Synopsis:
The rhythms of physiological processes at different time scales, such as circadian, hormonal, respiratory, cardiac, vascular, autonomic, and cellular are linked and give rise to physiologically relevant communication.

In the case of the autonomic nervous system, heart rate rhythms and cardiovascular-respiratory coordinations are successfully assessed by power spectral analysis, complexity measures, information flow, phase synchronization statistics, as well as by mathematical modelling and simulation.  For example, the complexity of autonomic rhythms and their interplay characterizes cardiovascular status in health and disease for both cardiac and multiple organ dysfunction patients; in a somewhat different pathological field, chronobiological investigations have uncovered a link between circadian rhythms and cell and tissue proliferation with regard to tumour growth; and last but not least, there are links between the autonomic nervous and circadian systems.

However, the beneficial role of synchronization of different systems, such as metabolic or information-related, is not clear. Are there pathogenic consequences of a disruption of those synchronizations?  What principles may guide therapeutics to reestablish them? To state the issue more precisely, which pathophysiologically relevant mediators are responsible for complexity changes in the autonomic and/or circadian dysfunctions and consequently may guide surveillance, diagnosis and treatment for the clinician?

Potential answers to these questions and directions for the development of methods of biomedical engineering and systems analysis to further answer these questions will be addressed in this minisymposium. The provision of a forum for an integrative and interdisciplinary discussion between physicians, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and biomedical engineers will be the main focus of this session.

Sessions:
Wednesday, August 30, 2006, 1.00 p.m. to 5.30 p.m.

Part 1: Fundamentals and circadian rhythms

Francis Levi, MD, PhD
Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, Villejuif, France
Levi-f@vjf.inserm.fr
"The circadian timing system, a coordinator of life processes"

Björn Lemmer, MD, PhD
Institute of Pharmacology and Toxikology, University of Heidelberg, Germany
bjoern.lemmer@urz.uni-heidelberg.de
"Importance of circadian rhythms for regulation of the cardiovascular system – studies in animal and man"

Tyvin Rich, MD
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA
tar4d@virginia.edu
“Cancer symptom complexes related to alterations in molecular circadian axis signalling”

Jean Clairambault, PhD, MD
Institut National de recherche en Informatique et en Automatique, Rocquencourt, France
Jean.Clairambault@inria.fr
"Physiologically based modelling of circadian control on cell proliferation"

Part 2: Cardiovascular and other coordinated rhythms

Maximilian Moser, PhD
Humanomed Clinic Althofen, Medical University of Graz, Joanneum Research Institute for Noninvasive Diagnosis, Weiz, Austria
max.moser@meduni-graz.at
"Why life oscillates - rhythms and health"

Phyllis K. Stein, PhD
Washington University School of Medicine, USA
PSTEIN@im.wustl.edu
"Circadian and ultradian rhythms in cardiovascular autonomic modulation"

Plamen Ch. Ivanov, PhD
Boston University, USA
plamen@buphy.bu.edu
"Scale-invariant Aspects of Physiologic Dynamics Across Sleep Stages and Circadian Phases"

Dirk Hoyer, PhD
Biomagnetic Center, Department of Neurology, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany
Dirk.Hoyer@biomag.uni-jena.de
"Association between short term and long term communication in pathological autonomic control"

Aneta Stefanovska, PhD
Department of Physics, Lancaster University, United Kingdom
aneta@lancaster.ac.uk
"Coupled oscillators: Complex but not complicated cardiovascular and brain interactions"

Michael Rosenblum, PhD
Institute of Physics, University of Potsdam, Germany
mros@agnld.uni-potsdam.de
"Inferring coupling between physiological systems from data: application to  cardio-respiratory interaction"