[en] Critical transitions ; alternative stable states ; hyteresis ; chronic disease ; early warning signals
[en] Ecosystems and biological systems are known to be inherently complex and to exhibit nonlinear dynamics. Diseases such as microbiome dysregulation or depression can be seen as complex systems as well and were shown to exhibit patterns of nonlinearity in their response to perturbations. These nonlinearities can be revealed by a sudden shift in system states, for instance from health to disease. The identification and characterization of early warning signals which could predict upcoming critical transitions is of primordial interest as prevention of disease onset is a major aim in health care. In this review, we focus on recent evidence for critical transitions in diseases and discuss the potential of such studies for therapeutic applications.
Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB): Experimental Neurobiology (Balling Group)
[University of Luxembourg > Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) > > ; > Experimental Neurobiology group (R. Balling)]
