发表机构
Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU); Deggendorf Institute of Technology（埃尔朗根-纽伦堡大学; 德根多夫应用技术大学）
机构由 AI 辅助整理，请以论文原文为准。AI 中文总结
针对淋巴系统作为分子通信应用领域的空白，开发了基于粒子的模拟框架，定量分析多淋巴管单元内溶质传输，揭示瓣膜门控导致的突发性浓度特征，为淋巴系统溶质传输建模提供首个定量基础。
AI 中文摘要
淋巴系统（LS）是一个遍布全身的血管和淋巴器官网络，负责体液稳态和免疫监视。尽管淋巴系统具有若干使其成为心血管系统有前景的补充替代方案的特性，但迄今为止，尚未将其作为诊断和治疗性分子通信（MC）应用的领域进行研究。这些有利特性包括流速较慢、分子流体组成更简单且密度较低，以及可直接解剖进入淋巴结。然而，要实现这一潜力，需要定量理解溶质如何通过淋巴系统传播，这一问题与淋巴流本身不同，在文献中仍未得到充分解决。作为缩小这一差距的第一步，我们开发了一个基于粒子的模拟（PBS）框架，用于模拟溶质通过由瓣膜分隔的、串联的血管段（称为淋巴管单元）组成的三维链的传输。我们模拟了溶质浓度的时空演化，并将所得的传输动力学与现有的多淋巴管单元淋巴管内荧光示踪剂传播的体内测量结果进行了定性验证。我们的模拟表明，淋巴管内溶质传输的瓣膜门控特性导致溶质浓度随时间呈突发性变化，这一特征在体内也可观察到。此外，我们发现，在一个泵送周期内，峰值时间由瓣膜的同步效应决定，而非粒子释放时间，而扩散性和接收器位置则决定峰值的尖锐程度。总体而言，所提出的PBS框架为淋巴系统中溶质传输建模提供了首个定量基础，并为这一未被充分探索的领域中的MC提供了几个具体应用场景。说明PBS的补充视频材料可在Zenodo上公开获取[DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21888066]。
英文摘要
The lymphatic system (LS), a body-wide network of vessels and lymphoid organs governing fluid homeostasis and immune surveillance, has so far not been investigated as a domain for diagnostic and therapeutic molecular communications (MC) applications, despite several properties that make it a promising, complementary alternative to the cardiovascular system. These favorable properties include slower flow, simpler and less dense molecular fluid composition, and direct anatomical access to lymph nodes. Realizing this potential, however, requires a quantitative understanding of how solutes propagate through the LS, a problem that, unlike lymph flow itself, remains largely unaddressed in the literature. As a first step towards narrowing this gap, we develop a particle-based simulation (PBS) framework of solute transport through a three-dimensional chain of valve-separated, concatenated vessel segments, called lymphangions. We simulate the spatiotemporal evolution of solute concentration and qualitatively validate the resulting transport dynamics against existing in vivo measurements of fluorescent tracer propagation in multi-lymphangion lymphatic vessels. Our simulations show that the valve-gated nature of solute transport in lymphatic vessels leads to bursty solute concentrations over time, a characteristic that can also be observed in vivo. Additionally, we find that, within one pumping period, peak timing is dictated by the valves' synchronizing effect rather than the particle release time, while diffusivity and receiver placement determine peak sharpness. Overall, the proposed PBS framework provides a first quantitative basis for solute transport modeling in the LS and several concrete application scenarios for MC in this underexplored domain. Supplementary video material illustrating the PBS is publicly available on Zenodo [DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21888066].
CommentsSubmitted to the IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) 2027; 6 pages, 7 figures;
