Department of Neurology
Adolescent; Adult; Bipolar Disorder; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Motor Activity; Young Adult
Life Sciences | Medicine and Health Sciences | Neurology
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.
Indic, Premananda; Salvatore, Paola; Maggini, Carlo; Ghidini, Stefano; Ferraro, Gabriella; Baldessarini, Ross J.; and Murray, Greg, "Scaling behavior of human locomotor activity amplitude: association with bipolar disorder" (2011). Open Access Articles. Paper 2359.