Sophie Taylor’s research while affiliated with University of Alberta and other places

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Publications (2)


Figure 1. A schematic illustration of the process of computing the Gibbs free energy for a protein-protein interaction network.
Figure 2. A schematic illustration of the method to calculate the average values of the Gibbs free energy over a number of samples. Here, n represents the number of samples used.
Figure 3. Plot of the Gibbs free energy for the 16 main brain regions averaged over the individual data sets and binned according to age groups.
Figure 4. Plot of the Gibbs free energy values averaged over all 16 brain areas and presented for female and male cases separately.
Summary of the abbreviations used for the brain regions with their descriptions and main functions performed.
Using the Gibbs Function as a Measure of Human Brain Development Trends from Fetal Stage to Advanced Age
  • Article
  • Full-text available

February 2020

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234 Reads

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4 Citations

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

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Sophie Taylor

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Jack A. Tuszynski

We propose to use a Gibbs free energy function as a measure of the human brain development. We adopt this approach to the development of the human brain over the human lifespan: from a prenatal stage to advanced age. We used proteomic expression data with the Gibbs free energy to quantify human brain’s protein–protein interaction networks. The data, obtained from BioGRID, comprised tissue samples from the 16 main brain areas, at different ages, of 57 post-mortem human brains. We found a consistent functional dependence of the Gibbs free energies on age for most of the areas and both sexes. A significant upward trend in the Gibbs function was found during the fetal stages, which is followed by a sharp drop at birth with a subsequent period of relative stability and a final upward trend toward advanced age. We interpret these data in terms of structure formation followed by its stabilization and eventual deterioration. Furthermore, gender data analysis has uncovered the existence of functional differences, showing male Gibbs function values lower than female at prenatal and neonatal ages, which become higher at ages 8 to 40 and finally converging at late adulthood with the corresponding female Gibbs functions.

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Thermodynamic Measures of Human Brain Development from Fetal Stage to Adulthood

February 2019

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41 Reads

This paper analyzes the data obtained from tissue samples of the human brains containing protein expression values. The data have been processed for their thermodynamic measure in terms of the Gibbs free energy of the corresponding protein-protein interaction networks. We have investigated the functional dependence of the Gibbs free energies on age and found consistent trends for most of the 16 main brain areas. The peak of the Gibbs energy values is found at birth with a trend toward plateauing at the age of maturity. We have also compared the data for males and females and uncovered functional differences for some of the brain regions. Author Summary In this paper we briefly outline the theoretical basis for a novel analysis of brain development in terms of a thermodynamic measure (Gibbs free energy) for the corresponding protein-protein interaction networks. We analyzed the overall developmental patterns for Gibbs free energy as a function of age across all brain regions. Of particular note was the significant upward trend in the fetal stages, which is generally followed by a sharp dip at birth and a plateau at maturity. We then compared the trends for female and male samples. A crossover pattern was observed for most of the brain regions, where the Gibbs free energy of the male samples were lower than the female samples at prenatal and neonatal ages, but higher at ages 8-40 finally converging at late adulthood.

Citations (1)


... The enrichment bubble plot in Figure S.10 clearly demonstrates distinct functional differences among the three gene classes. These enriched functions essentially ref lect key features of brain development from fetal development to adulthood [57,58]. For example, in terms of CC function, ClusterA is primarily associated with enveloped body-related structures such as coated nests and small bodies. ...

Reference:

STW-MD: a novel spatio-temporal weighting and multi-step decision tree method for considering spatial heterogeneity in brain gene expression data
Using the Gibbs Function as a Measure of Human Brain Development Trends from Fetal Stage to Advanced Age

International Journal of Molecular Sciences