Genomic Variation, Evolvability, and the Paradox of Mental Illness

Twentieth-century genetics was hard put to explain the irregular behavior of neuropsychiatric disorders. Autism and schizophrenia defy a principle of natural selection; they are highly heritable but associated with low reproductive success. Nevertheless, they persist. The genetic origins of such conditions are confounded by the problem of variable expression, that is, when a given genetic aberration can lead to any one of several distinct disorders. Also, autism and schizophrenia occur on a spectrum of severity, from mild and subclinical cases to the overt and disabling. Such irregularities reflect the problem of missing heritability; although hundreds of genes may be associated with autism or schizophrenia, together they account for only a small proportion of cases. Techniques for higher resolution, genomewide analysis have begun to illuminate the irregular and unpredictable behavior of the human genome. Thus, the origins of neuropsychiatric disorders in particular and complex disease in general have been illuminated. The human genome is characterized by a high degree of structural and behavioral variability: DNA content variation, epistasis, stochasticity in gene expression, and epigenetic changes. These elements have grown more complex as evolution scaled the phylogenetic tree. They are especially pertinent to brain development and function. Genomic variability is a window on the origins of complex disease, neuropsychiatric disorders, and neurodevelopmental disorders in particular. Genomic variability, as it happens, is also the fuel of evolvability. The genomic events that presided over the evolution of the primate and hominid lineages are over-represented in patients with autism and schizophrenia, as well as intellectual disability and epilepsy. That the special qualities of the human genome that drove evolution might, in some way, contribute to neuropsychiatric disorders is a matter of no little interest.

Bifurcation and Oscillatory Dynamics of Delayed Cyclic Gene Networks Including Small RNAs

It has been demonstrated in a large number of experimental results that small RNAs (sRNAs) play a vital role in gene regulation processes. Thus, the gene regulation process is dominated by sRNAs in addition to messenger RNAs and proteins. However, the regulation mechanism of sRNAs is not well understood and there are few models considering the effect of sRNAs. So it is of realistic biological background to include sRNAs when modeling gene networks. In this paper, sRNAs are incorporated into the process of gene expression and a new differential equation model is put forward to describe cyclic genetic regulatory networks with sRNAs and multiple delays. We mainly investigate the stability and bifurcation criteria for two cases: 1) positive cyclic genetic regulatory networks and 2) negative cyclic genetic regulatory networks. For a positive cyclic genetic regulatory network, it is revealed that there may exist more than one equilibrium and the multistability can appear. Sufficient conditions are established for the delay-independent stability and fold bifurcations. It is found that the dynamics of positive cyclic gene networks has no bearing on time delays, but depends on the biochemical parameters, the Hill coefficient and the equilibrium itself. For a negative cyclic genetic regulatory network, it is proved that there exists a unique equilibrium. Delay-dependent conditions for the stability are derived, and the existence of Hopf bifurcations is examined. Different from the delay-independent stability of positive gain networks, the stability of equilibrium is determined not only by the biochemical parameters, the Hill coefficient and the equilibrium itself, but also by the total delay. At last, three illustrative examples are provided to validate the major results.

Stability of Markovian Jump Generalized Neural Networks With Interval Time-Varying Delays

This paper examines the problem of asymptotic stability for Markovian jump generalized neural networks with interval time-varying delays. Markovian jump parameters are modeled as a continuous-time and finite-state Markov chain. By constructing a suitable Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional (LKF) and using the linear matrix inequality (LMI) formulation, new delay-dependent stability conditions are established to ascertain the mean-square asymptotic stability result of the equilibrium point. The reciprocally convex combination technique, Jensen's inequality, and the Wirtinger-based double integral inequality are used to handle single and double integral terms in the time derivative of the LKF. The developed results are represented by the LMI. The effectiveness and advantages of the new design method are explained using five numerical examples.

Sufficient and necessary conditions for Lyapunov stability of genetic networks with SUM regulatory logic

In this paper, a nonlinear model for genetic regulator networks (GRNs) with SUM regulatory logic is presented. Four sufficient and necessary conditions of global asymptotical stability and global exponential stability for the equilibrium point of the GRNs are proposed, respectively. Specifically, three weak sufficient conditions and corresponding corollaries are derived by using comparing theorem and Dini derivative method. Then, a famous GRN model is used as the example to illustrate the effectiveness of our theoretical results. Comparing to the results in the previous literature, some novel ideas, study methods and interesting results are explored.

Discontinuous Lyapunov approach to state estimation and filtering of jumped systems with sampled-data

This paper is concerned with the sampled-data state estimation and H(∞) filtering for a class of Markovian jump systems with the discontinuous Lyapunov approach. The system measurements are sampled and then transmitted to the estimator and filter in order to estimate the state of the jumped system under consideration. The corresponding error dynamics is represented by a system with two types of delays: one is from the system itself, and the other from the sampling period. As the delay due to sampling is discontinuous, a corresponding discontinuous Lyapunov functional is constructed, and sufficient conditions are established so as to guarantee both the asymptotic mean-square stability and the H(∞) performance for the filtering error systems. The explicit expressions of the desired estimator and filter are further provided. Finally, two simulation examples are given to illustrate the design procedures and performances of the proposed method.

Exponential state estimation of Markovian jumping genetic regulatory networks with mode-dependent probabilistic time-varying delays

In this paper, we investigate a problem of exponential state estimation for Markovian jumping genetic regulatory networks with mode-dependent probabilistic time-varying delays. A new type of mode-dependent probabilistic leakage time-varying delay is considered. Given the probability distribution of the time-delays, stochastic variables that satisfying Bernoulli random binary distribution are formulated to produce a new system which includes the information of the probability distribution. Under these circumstances, the state estimator is designed to estimate the true concentration of the mRNA and the protein of the GRNs. Based on Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional that includes new triple integral terms and decomposed integral intervals, delay-distribution-dependent exponential stability criteria are obtained in terms of linear matrix inequalities. Finally, a numerical example is provided to show the usefulness and effectiveness of the obtained results.

Dissipativity analysis for discrete-time stochastic neural networks with time-varying delays

In this paper, the problem of dissipativity analysis is discussed for discrete-time stochastic neural networks with time-varying discrete and finite-distributed delays. The discretized Jensen inequality and lower bounds lemma are adopted to deal with the involved finite sum quadratic terms, and a sufficient condition is derived to ensure the considered neural networks to be globally asymptotically stable in the mean square and strictly (Q, S, R)-y-dissipative, which is delay-dependent in the sense that it depends on not only the discrete delay but also the finite-distributed delay. Based on the dissipativity criterion, some special cases are also discussed. Compared with the existing ones, the merit of the proposed results in this paper lies in their reduced conservatism and less decision variables. Three examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness and benefits of our theoretical results.

Stability and dissipativity analysis of static neural networks with time delay

This paper is concerned with the problems of stability and dissipativity analysis for static neural networks (NNs) with time delay. Some improved delay-dependent stability criteria are established for static NNs with time-varying or time-invariant delay using the delay partitioning technique. Based on these criteria, several delay-dependent sufficient conditions are given to guarantee the dissipativity of static NNs with time delay. All the given results in this paper are not only dependent upon the time delay but also upon the number of delay partitions. Some examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness and reduced conservatism of the proposed results.