Quantifying resilience of humans and other animals
Scheffer M · Bolhuis JE · Borsboom D · Buchman TG · Gijzel SMW · Goulson D · Kammenga JE · Kemp B · van de Leemput IA · Levin S · Martin CM · Melis RJF · van Nes EH · Romero LM · Olde Rikkert MGM
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2018
What the research tells us
The paper proposes studying resilience through dynamics: slower recovery may accompany changes in variance, temporal autocorrelation or correlations between subsystems. These are testable ideas, but simulations and findings cited from other papers are not new human clinical validation by this article.
Scope & interpretation
Critical slowing depends on assumptions about near-equilibrium behaviour and perturbations and does not cover every cyclic, chaotic or abrupt transition. Noise, changing external disturbances and treatment can alter the same indicators. High autocorrelation alone does not establish declining resilience.
Study at a glance
- POPULATION & SAMPLE
- Human, animal and complex-system literature and models; no new unified patient cohort.
- EXPOSURE / INTERVENTION / SUBJECT
- Theory and cross-domain comparisons of recovery rates, temporal autocorrelation, variance and cross-system correlations.
- OUTCOMES
- Candidate interpretations and conditions for dynamic resilience indicators; no unified diagnostic-performance estimate.
- TIME FRAME
- Multiple sampling frequencies and recovery scales; the system and disturbance must first be specified.
Editorial & review record
Record for v1.0 · Updated
Editorial responsibility: TAP Editorial Team
Scientific review
Not yet scientifically reviewed
Editorial note
Under the editorial responsibility of the TAP Editorial Team, this publication used AI assistance for content organization and editing. Scientific review is recorded separately on this page.
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How responsibilities and review are recorded ↗Scope of this reading note
The body sections and Figures 1–3 captions were read through. Supplementary Tables S1/S2 and cited prospective human studies remain to be examined.
- Study funding
- No separate funding paragraph was found in the obtained body text; funding remains unverified.
- Competing interests
- The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Project support
Founded and supported by Resilio.
Revision history
- · v1.0
Added dynamic-resilience theory, its critical-slowing assumptions and limits of clinical validation.