https://goo.gl/xwawMT
“The four subtypes of depression that we discovered vary in terms of their clinical symptoms but, more importantly, they differ in their responses to treatment,” Liston said. “We can now predict with high accuracy whether or not a patient will respond to transcranial magnetic stimulation therapy, which is significant because it takes five weeks to know if this type of treatment works.”
Researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine and seven other institutions derived the biomarkers by assigning statistical weights to abnormal connections in the brain, then predicting the probability that they belonged to one subtype versus another. The study found that distinct patterns of abnormal functional connectivity in the brain differentiated the four biotypes and were linked with specific symptoms. For example, reduced connectivity in the part of the brain that regulates fear-related behavior and reappraisal of negative emotional stimuli was most severe in biotypes one and four, which exhibited increased anxiety.
Liston will seek to replicate and confirm the results of this research and discover if it is broadly applicable to studying the biology of depression and other forms of mental illness.