Scaling Behavior of Human Locomotor Activity Amplitude: Association with Bipolar Disorder

Autor: Carlo Maggini, G Ferraro, Greg Murray, Premananda Indic, Ross J. Baldessarini, Stefano Ghidini, Paola Salvatore
Rok vydání: 2011
Předmět:
Zdroj: PLoS ONE
PLoS ONE, Vol 6, Iss 5, p e20650 (2011)
ISSN: 1932-6203
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0020650
Popis: Scale invariance is a feature of complex biological systems, and abnormality of multi-scale behaviour may serve as an indicator of pathology. The hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) is a major node in central neural networks responsible for regulating multi-scale behaviour in measures of human locomotor activity. SCN also is implicated in the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder (BD) or manic-depressive illness, a severe, episodic disorder of mood, cognition and behaviour. Here, we investigated scaling behaviour in actigraphically recorded human motility data for potential indicators of BD, particularly its manic phase. A proposed index of scaling behaviour (Vulnerability Index [VI]) derived from such data distinguished between: [i] healthy subjects at high versus low risk of mood disorders; [ii] currently clinically stable BD patients versus matched controls; and [iii] among clinical states in BD patients.
Databáze: OpenAIRE