[What do you mean by 'tipping point'?].

Abstract

The physiology of all living organisms is striving for maintenance of a homeostatic balance. Both diseases and external stressors disturb this balance and may cause the organism to pass a in principle reversible tipping point towards a disease state. However, tipping points also occur in other complex systems, as we have seen for banks in the recent economic crises, and for health care institutions in the covid-19 pandemic. Many studies have been carried out to elucidate the behavior of such systems in the proximity of tipping points. The common principle among all complex adaptive systems turned out to be the critical slowing of the system close to it's tipping point. Additionally, the concepts of frailty and resilience have been developed to respectively characterize the risk for passing tipping points and the chances to return to a healthy balance. Both can be quantified and have shown prognostic value for the dynamics of complex (living) systems around their tipping points.