Dynamical Systems and Depression: A Framework for Theoretical Perspectives

The theory of dynamical systems allows one to describe the change in a system's macroscopic behavior as a bifurcation in the underlying dynamics. We show here, from the example of depressive syndrome, the existence of a correspondence between clinical and electro-physiological dimensions and the association between clinical remission and brain dynamics reorganization (i.e. bifurcation). On the basis of this experimental study, we discuss the interest of such results concerning the question of normality versus pathology in psychiatry and the relationship between mind and brain.