Synthetic MC via Biological Transmitters: Therapeutic Modulation of the Gut-Brain Axis
Journal:
arXiv
Published Date:
Jul 10, 2025
Abstract
Synthetic molecular communication (SMC) is a key enabler for future
healthcare systems in which Internet of Bio-Nano-Things (IoBNT) devices
facilitate the continuous monitoring of a patient's biochemical signals. To
close the loop between sensing and actuation, both the detection and the
generation of in-body molecular communication (MC) signals is key. However,
generating signals inside the human body, e.g., via synthetic nanodevices,
poses a challenge in SMC, due to technological obstacles as well as legal,
safety, and ethical issues. Hence, this paper considers an SMC system in which
signals are generated indirectly via the modulation of a natural in-body MC
system, namely the gut-brain axis (GBA). Therapeutic GBA modulation is already
established as treatment for neurological diseases, e.g., drug refractory
epilepsy (DRE), and performed via the administration of nutritional supplements
or specific diets. However, the molecular signaling pathways that mediate the
effect of such treatments are mostly unknown. Consequently, existing treatments
are standardized or designed heuristically and able to help only some patients
while failing to help others. In this paper, we propose to leverage personal
health data, e.g., gathered by in-body IoBNT devices, to design more versatile
and robust GBA modulation-based treatments as compared to the existing ones. To
show the feasibility of our approach, we define a catalog of theoretical
requirements for therapeutic GBA modulation. Then, we propose a machine
learning model to verify these requirements for practical scenarios when only
limited data on the GBA modulation exists. By evaluating the proposed model on
several datasets, we confirm its excellent accuracy in identifying different
modulators of the GBA. Finally, we utilize the proposed model to identify
specific modulatory pathways that play an important role for therapeutic GBA
modulation.
