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.

Why bother to spatially embed EEG? Comments on Pritchard et al., Psychophysiology, 33, 362-368, 1996

In a recent paper, Pritchard, Krieble, and Duke (Psychophysiology, 33, 362-368, 1996) studied the validity of spatial embedding of electroencephalographic (EEG) data and rejected this method in favor of time-delay embedding. The present paper describes the nonlinear characterization of brain dynamics using either spatial or time-delay embedding. We discuss the arguments published in Pritchard et al. (1996) and demonstrate that the spatial embedding cannot be rejected on this basis. We also point out the limitations of both spatial and time-delay embeddings related to the spatial extension and the high-dimensional dynamics of brain activity.