Seizer Lennart, Cornélissen-Guillaume Germaine, Schiepek Günter K, Chamson Emil, Bliem Harald R, Schubert Christian
Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Psychosomatics and Medical Psychology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria.
Institute of Psychology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria.
Front Psychiatry. 2022 Jun 20;13:799214. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.799214. eCollection 2022.
In a previous integrative single-case study, we collected biological, psychological and social time-series data on a 25-year-old healthy woman over the course of 126 12-h intervals (63 days) and used urinary neopterin as an indicator of cellular immune activity [Schubert et al. 2012 (1)]. The present re-evaluation introduced Dynamic Complexity (DC) as an additional non-linear and non-stationary measure to further investigate the subject's biopsychosocial dynamics during the study. The new time series dealing with urinary neopterin complexity revealed a cyclic, circaseptan (about-weekly) repeating pattern (6.59 days). The only weekly reoccurring events over the course of the study that were associated with this immunological pattern were the in-depth interviews with the subject (mean distance between interviews: 6.5 days). Superposed epoch analysis (SEA) revealed a U-shaped relation between neopterin complexity and interviews, with a decrease in neopterin complexity before and during interviews and an increase after interviews. Furthermore, the complexity scores for irritation, anxiousness/depressiveness and mental activity were positively correlated with neopterin complexity. The results suggest that the interviews, which had been found to be related to the subject's need for educational and/or social accomplishment, were marked by stress (decrease in psycho-immunological flexibility and adaptability), which was then relieved after the interviews (increase in psycho-immunological flexibility and adaptability). It appears that the subject's cellular immune activity, as indicated by neopterin complexity, functionally mirrored the emotional meaning she ascribed to the in-depth interviews. This re-evaluation is in line with the view that biopsychosocial research requires multimodal analysis of single cases based on qualitative (e.g., in-depth interviews) and quantitative (e.g., time series analysis) data under conditions of "life as it is lived".
在之前的一项综合单病例研究中，我们在126个12小时时间段（63天）内收集了一名25岁健康女性的生物、心理和社会时间序列数据，并使用尿新蝶呤作为细胞免疫活动的指标[舒伯特等人，2012年（1）]。本重新评估引入了动态复杂性（DC）作为一种额外的非线性和非平稳测量方法，以进一步研究该受试者在研究期间的生物心理社会动态。处理尿新蝶呤复杂性的新时间序列揭示了一种周期性的、大约一周重复一次的模式（6.59天）。在研究过程中，与这种免疫模式相关的唯一每周重复出现的事件是对该受试者的深入访谈（访谈之间的平均间隔：6.5天）。叠加时段分析（SEA）揭示了新蝶呤复杂性与访谈之间呈U形关系，即访谈前和访谈期间新蝶呤复杂性降低，访谈后增加。此外，易怒、焦虑/抑郁和精神活动的复杂性得分与新蝶呤复杂性呈正相关。结果表明，已发现与受试者的教育和/或社会成就需求相关的访谈，其特征是压力（心理免疫灵活性和适应性降低），而在访谈后这种压力得到缓解（心理免疫灵活性和适应性增加）。似乎由新蝶呤复杂性所表明的受试者的细胞免疫活动，在功能上反映了她赋予深入访谈的情感意义。这种重新评估与以下观点一致，即生物心理社会研究需要在“真实生活”条件下，基于定性（如深入访谈）和定量（如时间序列分析）数据对单病例进行多模态分析。
