Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management, Wageningen University, 6700 AA, Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014 Jan 7;111(1):87-92. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1312114110. Epub 2013 Dec 9.
About 17% of humanity goes through an episode of major depression at some point in their lifetime. Despite the enormous societal costs of this incapacitating disorder, it is largely unknown how the likelihood of falling into a depressive episode can be assessed. Here, we show for a large group of healthy individuals and patients that the probability of an upcoming shift between a depressed and a normal state is related to elevated temporal autocorrelation, variance, and correlation between emotions in fluctuations of autorecorded emotions. These are indicators of the general phenomenon of critical slowing down, which is expected to occur when a system approaches a tipping point. Our results support the hypothesis that mood may have alternative stable states separated by tipping points, and suggest an approach for assessing the likelihood of transitions into and out of depression.
大约 17%的人类在其一生中会经历一次重度抑郁发作。尽管这种使人丧失能力的疾病给社会带来了巨大的代价，但人们对如何评估陷入抑郁发作的可能性知之甚少。在这里，我们为一大群健康个体和患者展示了，即将发生的从抑郁状态到正常状态的转变的概率与自发记录的情绪波动中情绪的时间自相关性、方差和相关性的升高有关。这些是一般临界减速现象的指标，当系统接近临界点时，预计会出现这种现象。我们的结果支持了这样一种假设，即情绪可能有由临界点分隔的替代稳定状态，并提出了一种评估进入和退出抑郁的可能性的方法。
