Modelling brain metabolism with interacting nonautonomous phase oscillators

Barnes, Samuel J.K. (author), Echeverría, Anaí (author), Hawley, Joshua (author), Suprunenko, Yevhen F. (author), Stefanovska, Aneta (author)

Traditional brain models have focused primarily on electrical signalling, offering valuable insights but often overlooking the crucial role of metabolism within the neurovascular unit. Existing metabolic models tend to be highly detailed and mass-based, relying on strict conservation laws that limit their applicability to the brain’s thermodynamically open environment. In this study, we present a novel, phenomenological model of neuronal energy metabolism using a network of coupled Kuramoto oscillators. This nonautonomous phase dynamics framework captures complex, time-dependent interactions and allows for multiple synchronization states among metabolic processes. Our model captures key features consistent with healthy neurovascular dynamics, despite not being directly fitted to empirical data from resting-state brains and reveals how disruptions in metabolic synchrony may contribute to dementia-related pathology. By emphasizing the importance of metabolic coordination in the neurovascular unit, this work provides a versatile methodological foundation for future brain modelling efforts.

• Language: English
• Keywords: astrocyte, brain, coupled oscillators, metabolism, network physiology, neurovascular unit, nonautonomous systems, phase dynamics
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FE - Faculty of Electrical Engineering
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: 14 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 6
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-179844
• UDC: 621.373:612
• ISSN on article: 2674-0109
• DOI: 10.3389/fnetp.2026.1720336
• COBISS.SI-ID: 269647363
• Publication date in RUL: 25.02.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Frontiers in network physiology
• Shortened title: Front. netw. physiol.
• Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
• ISSN: 2674-0109
• COBISS.SI-ID: 75774211

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: astrocit, možgani, povezani nihalniki, presnova, fiziologija mreže, nevrovaskularna enota, neavtonomni sistemi, fazna dinamika

Projects

• Funder: UKRI - UK Research and Innovation
• Project number: EP/M006298/1
• Name: A device to detect and measure the progression of dementia by quantifying the interactions between neuronal and cardiovascular oscillations

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P2-0232
• Name: Analiza biomedicinskih slik in signalov