Educational Tool for Mathematical Model of Muscular Dystrophy
Educational Tool for Mathematical Model of Muscular Dystrophy

Summary/Abstract: According to medical literature there are more than 30 different types of muscular dystrophy. Among them Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is practically the most frequent. Around fifty percent of pediatric patients have this severe type disease that is due to deficiency of a protein (dystrophin), which is main the responsible to release the fibers in muscles. Mathematical models can help the students to understand the importance of immune system into to process of degeneration/regeneration of muscle. The fact that the damaged fibers are never completely cleared can be seen from simulation. Creating an interface for The Duchenne’s mathematical model can simulate these aspects. The model has five differential equations (Dell’Acqua-Castiglione’s model with some refinements) of first order and data used for fit the model is taken from experimental mice data, existent in literature. The experimental Using preservation law improves the old model, allowing for a much easier software deployment. The user has the possibility to modify the constants of the model in order to have an asymptotic stability but also to evaluate the influence of the constants on the dynamics of the model. The model for failure probability, time to failure is usually modeled by a lognormal function. The used has the possibility to choose an alternative at this function, a Weibull based distribution one, in order to see how strong could be the influence of degradation model on a practical data obtained in muscular dystrophy. The user has also the possibility to introduce tabular data that models the failure curve and the software module will automatically fit in one of the five models available in the library to be used in simulation. The software is constructed in a tutorial manner in order to provide to students the knowledge and ideas for eventually cure for this disease.

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