1. The futility of long-term predictions in bipolar disorder: mood fluctuations are the result of deterministic chaotic processes
- Author
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Claire Slaney, Benoit H. Mulsant, Kamil Bradler, Maxine Mowete, Stephane MacLean, Julie Garnham, Abigail Ortiz, and Martin Alda
- Subjects
Neurophysiology and neuropsychology ,Episode prediction ,Bipolar disorder ,Chaotic ,Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,Lyapunov exponent ,symbols.namesake ,medicine ,Statistical physics ,Biological Psychiatry ,Mathematics ,Mood fluctuations ,Research ,QP351-495 ,Autocorrelation ,medicine.disease ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Nonlinear system ,Mood ,Unaffected first-degree relatives ,Detrended fluctuation analysis ,Tukey's range test ,symbols ,Nonlinear analyses ,RC321-571 - Abstract
Background Understanding the underlying architecture of mood regulation in bipolar disorder (BD) is important, as we are starting to conceptualize BD as a more complex disorder than one of recurring manic or depressive episodes. Nonlinear techniques are employed to understand and model the behavior of complex systems. Our aim was to assess the underlying nonlinear properties that account for mood and energy fluctuations in patients with BD; and to compare whether these processes were different in healthy controls (HC) and unaffected first-degree relatives (FDR). We used three different nonlinear techniques: Lyapunov exponent, detrended fluctuation analysis and fractal dimension to assess the underlying behavior of mood and energy fluctuations in all groups; and subsequently to assess whether these arise from different processes in each of these groups. Results There was a positive, short-term autocorrelation for both mood and energy series in all three groups. In the mood series, the largest Lyapunov exponent was found in HC (1.84), compared to BD (1.63) and FDR (1.71) groups [F (2, 87) = 8.42, p Conclusions The underlying nature of mood variability is in keeping with that of a chaotic system, which means that fluctuations are generated by deterministic nonlinear process(es) in HC, BD, and FDR. The value of this complex modeling lies in analyzing the nature of the processes involved in mood regulation. It also suggests that the window for episode prediction in BD will be inevitably short.
- Published
- 2021