Negative Attractor Architecture in Lyme Disease An Ecological Homeostasis Analysis of Borrelia burgdorferi

AbstractLyme disease, caused by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi and transmitted by Ixodes ticks,represents the most prevalent vector-borne illness in the Northern Hemisphere, with anestimated 476,000 cases diagnosed annually in the United States alone and rapidgeographic expansion into previously non-endemic regions. This paper applies theEcological Homeostasis (EH) framework, the General Theory of Regulated Stability (GTRS),and the Coherence-Decoherence-Recoherence (CDR) cycle to analyse B. burgdorferiinfection as a system of five interconnected negative states that disrupt immunehomeostasis at cellular, tissue, systemic, individual-chronic, and population-ecological levels.We propose that B. burgdorferi infection includes a demonstrated Captured RegulatorySystem (CRS) mechanism—the FcγRIIb antibody feedback loop—in which the host's owninfection-induced antibodies suppress germinal centre maintenance via inhibitory Fcreceptor signalling. This canonical capture mechanism is distinguished from complementsystem sabotage (functional blockade via BBK32) and CRS-adjacent immune dysregulation(IL-10-driven macrophage reprogramming, Acod1/itaconate-mediated trained tolerance),which require further in vivo validation before full CRS classification.The GTRS framework provides a conceptual lens through which to understand theinteraction between immune recoherence capacity (R) and pathogen/environmental stress(σ). We propose—as a theoretical construct requiring prospective validation—that acomposite of early plasmablast counts and CCL19 levels at diagnosis may approximate R,with patients showing low R relative to σ at elevated risk of post-treatment Lyme diseasesyndrome (PTLDS). This prediction is explicitly unvalidated and requires multivariateregression in prospective cohorts before clinical application.An intervention architecture mapping existing and proposed amelioration and extinctionpathways for each negative state reveals that the Pfizer/Valneva OspA vaccine (73.2%efficacy, Phase 3 VALOR trial, March 2026), emerging mRNA vaccine platforms, andpreclinical evidence that IL-17 supplementation can restore germinal centre formation in amurine model collectively provide a framework for systematic intervention across individualand population scales