An Amrita study by PhD student Hemalatha Sasidharakurup, along with Kanishka and Lakshmi Nair 2019 undergraduate thesis students BRITE, was presented by Prof. Shyam Diwakar of Amrita School of Biotechnology at the International Conference on Complex Networks and their Applications (Complex Networks 2019) at Lisbon, Portugal from December  10-12, 2019.

In the study presented, a biochemical systems theory model of tumour necrosis factors in Parkinson’s disease was reconstructed taking into account various signalling mechanisms and biomarkers that connect experimental data to clinical predictions. Parkinson’s disease is a debilitating neurological condition that includes disorders relating to movement and cognitive decline.

Nine research papers were presented at the Third International Conference on Computing and Network Communications (CoCoNet’19), Trivandrum, Kerala, India, from December 18-21, 2019.

The papers were based on studies led by Computational Neuroscience PhD students Chaitanya Kumar Nutakki, Hemalatha Sasidharakurup, Sandeep Bodda, and researchers Rakhi Radhamani, Nijin Nizar, Dhanush Kumar, Joshy Alphonse, Anandhu Presannan and Sreedev Radhakrishnan along with Laboratory interns who were B.Sc and M.Sc. students focusing on human gait, recoding and analysis of neural biosignals, computational modeling, bioinformatics, brain changes to music, yoga and meditation.

Among the papers, the studies by undergraduates on brain and yoga-meditation were done jointly with the Amrita Yoga team at Amritapuri.

The CoCoNet 2019 papers include:

• Computational Analysis of EEG Activity During Stance and Swing Gait Phases by Sandeep Bodda, Sreelekshmi Maya, Manu Naryanan EM Potti, Uma Sohan, Yellapu Bhuvaneshwari, Rithul Mathiyoth and Shyam Diwakar.
• Mathematical Modeling of fMRI BOLD Responses Related Nitric Oxide Production-Consumption in the Cerebellum Granule Layer by Sreedev Radhakrishnan, Chaitanya Nutakki and Shyam Diwakar.
• Classification and Kinetic Analysis of Healthy Gait Using Multiple Accelerometer Sensors by Chaitanya Nutakki, Reuben Jacob Mathew, Amritha Suresh, Anjitha R Vijay, Swetha Krishna, Anandu S Babu and Shyam Diwakar.
• Classification of Human Gait: Swing and Stance Phases using Sum-Vector Analysis by Sagar S Babu, Chaitanya Nutakki and Shyam Diwakar.
• ReConvPy: Modeling Local Field Potentials of Cerebellum Granule Neurons using Repetitive Convolutions in Python by Anandhu Presannan and Shyam Diwakar.
• Computational Analysis of Cortical EEG Bio Signals and Neural Dynamics Underlying an Integrated Mind-Body Relaxation Technique by Rakhi Radhamani, Nijin Nizar, Dhanush Kumar, Gayathri Suresh Pillai, Lakshmi Swapna Prasad, Sreehari Sudheer Jitha, Midhun Krishna Vannathi Kuniyil, Abhijith Anil Sekhar, Vaishnav Satheesh Kumar, Shobhana Pillai and Shyam Diwakar.
• Computational Model of Convergent Mechanisms in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease with Insulin Signalling Using Biochemical Systems Theory by Hemalatha Sasidharakurup, Namitha Nalarajan, Meera Nair, Shibin Mubarak, Arathy Koranath and Shyam Diwakar.
• Deploying a Web-based Electroencephalography Data Analysis Virtual Laboratory by Joshy Alphonse and Shyam Diwakar.
• Computational Exploration of Neural Dynamics Underlying Music Cues Among Trained and Amateur Subjects (SETAC’19) by Akhil Santosh, Muralikirshna Sangilirajan, Nijin Nizar, Rakhi Radhamani, Dhanush Kumar, Sandeep Bodda and Shyam Diwakar.

The Complex Networks paper (presented at Lisbon) :

• Computational Modelling of TNFα Pathway in Parkinson’s Disease – A Systems Theory Perspective by  Hemalatha Sasidharakurup, Lakshmi Nair, Kanishka Bhaskar and Shyam Diwakar.

The research studies were supervised by Dr. Shyam Diwakar, Director, Computational Neuroscience and Neurophysiology Lab, who is also an Associate Professor at Amrita School of Biotechnology.