Communication Theoretical Analysis of P-Cresol Signaling in Gut-Brain Axis with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Molecular communication (MC), a new bio-inspired communication paradigm that uses molecules to transfer information, is an important tool for understanding biological communications with many promising applications. The study of biological networks from a communication theoretical perspective is crucial for their introduction to the engineering field. Therefore, this paper aims to provide and analyze a molecular communication model of p-cresol signaling through the human gut-brain axis from a communication theoretical perspective. In this work, the propagation of p-cresol molecules inside the human body and the input-output relationship for p-cresol signaling in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are investigated. The impulse response of the MC-based p-cresol signaling model system is obtained, and numerical analysis is performed to understand gut-brain communication under different system settings using the presented system model. The effects of system properties, i.e., Rx dimension and Tx-Rx distance, on p-cresol signaling are investigated by simulations.