Modelling the osteocyte network and its control of the mechanotransduction and remodelling of bone

骨是一种非凡的材料，它经历了生长和发育的初始阶段直到成熟，然后在其剩余的生命中经历了一个连续的修复、更新和优化周期/通过一个被称为“重塑”的过程。令人惊讶的是，控制骨重建的机制仍然不完全清楚；但众所周知，它们非常复杂，随着使用、年龄、疾病和其他因素而变化。人们观察到，随着时间的推移，骨骼会对它所经历的负荷做出反应，因此，如果它反复超负荷，它就会变厚，如果它被充分利用，它就会吸收。一个特殊的负荷感应细胞(骨细胞)网络分布在整个骨骼中，负责检测施加的负荷，并触发启动新骨形成或移除现有骨的事件。因此，骨细胞网络在控制骨骼重建和维持骨骼的效率方面起着关键作用。本研究的目的是研究如何将最新的控制工程方法(例如，用于控制飞机和其他复杂系统)应用于骨细胞网络，并创建骨重建的模拟。这样的模拟将是一个极其有价值的工具，使研究人员能够探索骨骼在健康、患病或受伤时是如何工作的。例如，人们可能会推测，骨质疏松所观察到的骨密度下降是因为骨细胞网络受到了某种程度的破坏或骨细胞的敏感性发生了改变。这些理论可以在控制模型模拟中检验，以检验它们是否产生了观察到的骨质疏松症症状，类似地，控制模型模拟可以用来检验针对这种情况的不同治疗方法的效果。其他应用可能包括开发新的植入物或开发组织工程的新概念；例如，用于骨组织修复的支架或促进骨生长的生物活性植入物。在该项目的后面，根据我们在这项工作中的经验，我们将寻求确定生物学和生命科学中的其他领域，在这些领域中，控制工程可能有助于解释和研究其他复杂的现象。此外，我们将研究调控骨重塑的控制系统的特殊功能和性质是否可能更广泛地应用于工程，并为新的和/或不寻常的控制系统提供思路。

Bone is a remarkable material which goes through an initial phase of growth and development to maturity, followed by a continuous cycle of repair, renewal and optimisation throughout the rest of its life / by a process called 'remodelling'. Surprisingly, the mechanisms controlling bone remodelling are still not completely understood; but it is known, that they are very complex and change with use, with age, with disease and with other factors. Bone is observed to react to the load it experiences over time, so that it thickens if it is repeatedly over-loaded and resorbs if it is under-used. A network of special load sensing cells (osteocytes) is distributed throughout the bone and is responsible for detecting the applied load, and triggering the events that start the formation of new bone or the removal of existing bone. Thus the osteocyte network plays a key role in controlling the bone remodelling and maintaining the efficiency of our skeletons.The aim of this research is examine how the latest control engineering methods (for example, used to control aircraft and other complex systems) might be applied to the osteocyte network / and to create a simulation of bone remodelling. Such a simulation would be an extremely valuable tool and allow researchers to explore how bone works when it is healthy, diseased or injured. For example, one might speculate that the decrease in bone density observed with osteoporosis occurs because the osteocyte network somehow gets damaged or the sensitivity of the osteocytes is altered. These theories could be examined in the control model simulation, to examine whether they produced the symptoms observed with osteoporosis, and similarly the control model simulation could be used to examine the effects of different treatments for the condition. Other applications would might include the development of new implants or exploitation of new concepts in tissue engineering; for example, scaffolds for bone tissue repair or bioactive implants that encourage bone growth.Later on in the project, based on our experience with this work, we will seek to identify other areas in biology and the life sciences in general, where control engineering might be useful to explain and examine other complex phenomena. Furthermore, we will examine whether the special features and properties of the control system regulating bone remodelling might be more widely applicable to engineering, and provide ideas for new and/or unusual control systems.