CMINNs: Compartment Model Informed Neural Networks -- Unlocking Drug Dynamics

TL;DR

This paper introduces CMINNs, a novel neural network framework that incorporates fractional calculus and compartmental modeling to better capture complex drug dynamics in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, providing more accurate and insightful models.

Contribution

It proposes a new method combining physics-informed neural networks with fractional calculus to improve drug modeling accuracy and interpretability in PKPD systems.

Findings

Enhanced modeling of drug absorption and distribution.

Improved estimation of time-varying parameters.

Insights into drug resistance and tolerance mechanisms.

Abstract

In the field of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics (PKPD) modeling, which plays a pivotal role in the drug development process, traditional models frequently encounter difficulties in fully encapsulating the complexities of drug absorption, distribution, and their impact on targets. Although multi-compartment models are frequently utilized to elucidate intricate drug dynamics, they can also be overly complex. To generalize modeling while maintaining simplicity, we propose an innovative approach that enhances PK and integrated PK-PD modeling by incorporating fractional calculus or time-varying parameter(s), combined with constant or piecewise constant parameters. These approaches effectively model anomalous diffusion, thereby capturing drug trapping and escape rates in heterogeneous tissues, which is a prevalent phenomenon in drug dynamics. Furthermore, this method provides insight into the dynamics of drug in cancer in multi-dose administrations. Our methodology employs a Physics-Informed Neural Network (PINN) and fractional Physics-Informed Neural Networks (fPINNs), integrating ordinary differential equations (ODEs) with integer/fractional derivative order from compartmental modeling with neural networks. This integration optimizes parameter estimation for variables that are time-variant, constant, piecewise constant, or related to the fractional derivative order. The results demonstrate that this methodology offers a robust framework that not only markedly enhances the model's depiction of drug absorption rates and distributed delayed responses but also unlocks different drug-effect dynamics, providing new insights into absorption rates, anomalous diffusion, drug resistance, peristance and pharmacokinetic tolerance, all within a system of just two (fractional) ODEs with explainable results.