Explain Labs
Explain is a physiological simulation engine for neonatology. It models the cardiac and respiratory systems as a network of compartments — capacitances, resistors, time-varying elastances, gas exchangers and diffusors — and steps them in real time, in a browser.
What we build
Nothing on screen is scripted. Every pressure, flow, volume and blood gas is computed from a model of the patient. Change a resistance, open a duct, turn up the PEEP, and the whole circulation responds the way physiology says it should.
Thirty-five model definitions ship with the engine: a healthy term neonate, preterms from 24 to 36 weeks, a fetus, an adult, and congenital heart disease from HLHS and dTGA to TAPVC, coarctation, PA-IVS and six PDA variants. Each one is readable JSON you can fork.
Plain JavaScript in a Web Worker, no dependencies and nothing to install. A lecture hall laptop and a phone at the bedside run the same model at the same speed.
Applications
Free account required
The full model. Load or build a patient, drive the ventilator and ECLS, and watch circulation, respiration and blood gases respond in real time — down to the pressure in any single compartment.
Open · no account
A patient monitor emulator driven by the same engine. ECG, two plethysmograms, arterial pressure, respiration and capnography, on a screen that behaves like the one on the unit — built for manikin scenarios and simulation training.
Invite only
Clinical reasoning and data driven learning in neonatology. Work a case the way you would work it on the unit — commit to a decision, then see what the data says.
Open source and science
Explain is open. The engine and the web app are public on GitHub under the MIT licence, the model definitions are readable JSON, and the engine is archived and citable on Zenodo. If you want to know what a scenario actually does, you can read the code that does it.
Antonius, T. Explain — a physiological simulation engine for neonatology. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21389097