18 - Estimating Thyrotropin Secretory Activity by a Deconvolution Procedure

Abstract

This chapter describes the deconvolution techniques for estimating thyrotropin secretory activity. The detection of episodic secretory activity by discrete deconvolution algorithm is based on a simple model assumption. A gland secretes its hormone into the blood (one compartment) from where it decays with one half-life. The time series of the secretory activity reveals shorter pulses than the original data set as the smoothing by the half-life of the hormone is removed by discrete deconvolution. In principle, one of the above-mentioned heuristic programs can be used to detect pulses within the time series of the secretory activity. The duplicates or triplicates of the hormone concentration measurement allow an estimation of the assay noise and the propagation of the measurement error by discrete deconvolution. The time series of duplicates or triplicates is split into individual time series of single determinations, which are separately analyzed by discrete deconvolution, and the standard error of the secretory activity is determined for each time step.