Professor Aneta Stefanovska

Professor

Research Interests

My work is motivated by the question “What are the physical principles underlying living systems?”. Living systems are characterised by their ability to respond to fluctuations coming from the external and internal environments. They exchange energy and matter with their environments and often do so in a regular way. Hence they have mechanisms to stabilise the frequency and amplitude of the associated oscillations, and can be characterised as interacting self-sustained non-autonomous oscillators.

We have named this class of systems chronotaxic (from chronos – time and taxis – order) and we are now defining their properties. We also work on the development of the numerical methods needed for studying the dynamics of chronotaxic systems as an inverse problem. Analysing recorded data, we observe similar patterns at all levels of complexity: starting from cells up to the cardiovascular system and the brain, to ecosystems and climate. Similar properties were observed also in laboratory experiments on surface state electrons on liquid helium.

In my work I learn from nature, but I also try to be useful to nature. Recording time-series, and analysing the underlying dynamics with our new algorithms, we investigate how we age in a dynamical sense, or what happens when we are unconsciousness in anaesthesia, or what changes take place in various cardiovascular diseases. Recently, we started investigating the dynamical markers of cancer.

Noisy oscillators in biology and medicine
Invited talk

Workshop on time-series analysis of noisy data
Participation in workshop, seminar, course

Can Non-autonomous Dynamics in Mathematics Adequately Describe Open Systems in Physics? Lessons from Data Analysis in Cellular, Cardiovascular and Brain Dynamics
Invited talk

Interactions in oscillatory systems far from equilibrium
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar

Multiscale oscillatory dynamics: What happens when the frequencies are not constant?
Invited talk

Non-Equilibrium Oscillatory Dynamics of Electrons on the Surface of Liquid Helium
Invited talk

Exploring the deterministic properties of external perturbations in data from open systems
Invited talk

Coupled oscillatory processes from a cell to the brain
Invited talk

Brain, respiratory and cardiac causalities: lessons from anaesthesia with sevoflorane and propofol
Invited talk

Cardiovascular and brain interactions in dementia
Invited talk

Phase dynamics – Theory and applications
Invited talk

Noise in open systems
Invited talk

Transitions in systems with non-autonomous perturbations: lessons from cell energy metabolism
Invited talk

Understanding real-world systems from the perspective of time-varying dynamics
Invited talk

Physics of biological rhythms: Challenges and applications
Invited talk

Where are we with the understanding of a collective dynamics of quasi-periodically perturbed particles?
Invited talk

Coherence and couplings between cardiac, respiratory and myogenic rhythms
Invited talk

Why is it important to study the oscillations of cardiovascular system?
Invited talk

Why is it important to study the oscillation of cardiovascular system?
Invited talk

Stability in networks of open systems
Invited talk

Chronotaxic dynamics: when the characteristic frequencies fluctuate and the system is stable
Invited talk

Complex and stable dynamics emerging from noise
Invited talk

Biological cell as a chronotaxic system
Invited talk

Oscillatory components of microvascular blood flow and their physiological relevance
Invited talk

Chronotaxic systems: A class of non-autonomous systems, with time-dependent frequencies, which resist continuous perturbations
Invited talk

Stability in the Fluctuations of the Cell Membrane Potential and How They Change with Cancer
Invited talk

Systems That Can Stabilise Their Rates: Lessons from the Circulatory System
Invited talk

Foundations of chronotaxic systems and applications to living systems
Invited talk

Chronotaxic systems: What and why?
Invited talk

Fluctuations in the membrane potential of a living cell: Chronotaxic systems – Stability in complexity
Invited talk

  • DSI - Health
  • Nonlinear and Biomedical Physics