Multiscale modeling for clinical translation in neuropsychiatric disease

Multiscale modeling of neuropsychiatric illness bridges scales of clinical importance: from the highest scales (presentation of behavioral signs and symptoms), through intermediate scales (clinical testing and surgical intervention), down to the molecular scale of pharmacotherapy. Modeling of brain disease is difficult compared to modeling of other organs, because dysfunction manifests at scales where measurements are rudimentary due both to inadequate access (memory and cognition) and to complexity (behavior). Nonetheless, we can begin to explore these aspects through the use of information-theoretic measures as stand-ins for meaning at the top scales. We here describe efforts across five disorders: Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, stroke, schizophrenia, and epilepsy. We look at the use of therapeutic brain stimulation to replace lost neural signals, a loss that produces diaschisis, defined as activity changes in other brain areas due to missing inputs. These changes may in some cases be compensatory, hence beneficial, but in many cases a primary pathology, whether itself static or dynamic, sets in motion a series of dynamic consequences that produce further pathology. The simulations presented here suggest how diaschisis can be reversed by using a neuroprosthetic signal. Despite having none of the information content of the lost physiological signal, the simplified neuroprosthetic signal can restore a diaschitic area to near-normal patterns of activity. Computer simulation thus begins to explain the remarkable success of stimulation technologies - deep brain stimulation, transcranial magnetic stimulation, ultrasound stimulation, transcranial direct current stimulation - across an extremely broad range of pathologies. Multiscale modeling can help us to optimize and integrate these neuroprosthetic therapies by taking into consideration effects of different stimulation protocols, combinations of stimulation with neuropharmacological therapy, and interplay of these therapeutic modalities with particular patterns of disease focality, dynamics, and prior therapies.