Table 1. State variables for individual NCC lesions, human agents and households, and initial values.

Variable names (units)	Possible values (specifying if static)	Meaning	Initial value
Variables for individual NCC lesions
Age (in weeks)	Positive integers	Time from inception of the lesion.	0
Parenchymal location	Yes/No (static)	Location of the lesion: it contributes to determine the likelihood and severity of symptoms associated with the lesion.	Random allocation based on the rules of the model (see “sub-models”)
Stage	Immature, mature non-calcified, calcified, disappeared	Describes the lifecycle of the lesion. Different stages and substages are associated with different likelihoods of symptoms. The immature stage is invisible on imaging. “Disappeared” is also invisible and was introduced solely for modelling purposes.	Immature
Substage length τ1 (in weeks)	Positive integers (static)	Duration of the first substage within the mature non-calcified stage, an asymptomatic period for all lesions. During this asymptomatic substage, the lesion is often (though not always) viable. The definition of this stage is not based on what is seen on imaging but on symptomatology, though the two often coincide.	Random allocation based on the rules of the model (see “sub-models”)
Substage length τ2 (in weeks)	Positive integers (static)	Duration of the second substage within the mature non-calcified stage (for parenchymal lesions). This substage may be symptomatic, and often corresponds to a degenerating lesion.	Random allocation based on the rules of the model (see “sub-models”)
Time since last epileptic seizure tseizure (in weeks)	Positive integers or NA	This helps keep track of the time since the last epileptic seizure. It is formally, for the purpose of the model, associated with the individual lesion. In reality, clinicians can rarely identify one specific lesion as the origin of a seizure. However, patients with epilepsy tend to have more lesions (52.5% have multiple lesions [22–27]) than asymptomatic patients (27.5% have multiple lesions [17,22,28–32]), suggesting that seizure risk increases with the number of lesions, a specificity that is better modelled by associating an additional risk to each additional lesion rather than a flat risk linked to the host’s NCC status.	NA
Association with ICH and/or hydrocephalus	Yes/No	Whether the lesion is associated, or not, with increased pressure (ICH) and/or cerebrospinal fluid accumulation (hydrocephalus) in the encephalus.	No
Variables for human agents
Age (in weeks)	Positive integers	Age of the human.	In line with village demographics (as in CystiAgent)
Household	ID	Household the agent belongs to.	In line with village demographics (as in CystiAgent)
Cook	Yes/No (static)	The human is responsible (or not) for cooking food for the household. There is exactly one ‘cook’ in each household. A cook with taeniasis may infect household members through contamination of prepared food with eggs.	Random (one per household)
Taeniasis status	Yes/No	Presence/absence of a mature taenia.	Randomly assigned at baseline as per CystiAgent
Epilepsy status	Active epilepsy, inactive epilepsy, asymptomatic	Epilepsy is defined as at least 2 unprovoked seizures at least 24 hours apart, while active epilepsy is defined as a person with epilepsy having had at least one seizure in the past 5 years [33]. Conversely, inactive epilepsy refers to a case in which the latest seizure took place over 5 years ago. Asymptomatic individuals are defined as individuals that do not have epilepsy (active or not).	Asymptomatic (no epilepsy)
ICH/hydrocephalus	Yes/No	The human host has ICH/hydrocephalus if at least one of its NCC lesions is associated with these pathologies.	No
Epilepsy treatment status	Current/Past/Never	Whether the patient receives or received treatment for epilepsy.	No
Epilepsy treatment success	Yes/No	Whether epilepsy treatment (if implemented) will be successful (no seizure) or a failure (breakthrough seizures). Individuals are randomly assigned to treatment success with probability rsuccess.	Yes with probability rsuccess, No otherwise
ICH/hydrocephalus treatment	No, non-surgical, surgical	Type of treatment received for ICH/hydrocephalus, if any. Non-surgical typically corresponds to anthelminthic treatment.	No
ICH/hydrocephalus treatment delay (in weeks)	Positive integers or NA	Time between first ICH/hydrocephalus symptoms and treatment (there is often a significant delay between the start of symptoms and diagnosis/treatment).	NA
Variables for households
Location	Discrete latitude and longitude coordinates	Household location (fixed).	In line with actual household locations within the village