Factors Influencing Essential Hypertension and Cardiovascular Disease Modeled and Analyzed using Stochastic Petri Nets

Essential hypertension is the world’s most prevalent cardiovascular disorder, however, its etiology remains poorly understood, making it difficult to study. The evidence suggests that inflammation can lead to the development of hypertension and that oxidative stress and endothelial dysfunction are involved in the inflammatory cascade. In this work, to investigate the influence of these factors on the essential hypertension development, a stochastic Petri net model has been built and then analyzed. To obtain appropriate initial marking and kinetic rate constants for the model, a simple heuristic has been developed. The application of this variant of Petri nets allowed for taking into account some important dependencies present in the modeled system what would be impossible in the case of qualitative models. This has enabled for an in-depth analysis of the studied phenomenon and a validation of biological conclusions previously obtained on the basis of a qualitative model.

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Opracowanie rekordu w ramach umowy 509/P-DUN/2018 ze środków MNiSW przeznaczonych na działalność upowszechniającą naukę (2018).