Clinical Utility of Fluid Biomarker in Depressive Disorder

Abstract

Major depressive disorders are ranked as the single largest contributor to non-fatal health loss and biomarkers could largely improve our routine clinical activity by predicting disease course and guiding treatment. However there is still a dearth of valid biomarkers in the field of psychiatry. The initial assumption that a single biomarker can capture the myriad of complex processes proved to be naive. The purpose of this paper is to critically review the field and to illustrate the possible practical application for routine clinical care. Biomarkers derived from DNA analysis are the ones that have received the most attention. Other potential candidates include circulating transcription products, proteins, and inflammatory markers. DNA polygenic risk scores proved to be useful in other fields of medicine and preliminary results suggest that they could be useful both as risk and diagnostic biomarkers also in depression and for the choice of treatment. A number of other possible fluid biomarkers are currently under investigation for diagnosis, outcome prediction, staging, and stratification of interventions, however research is still needed before they can be used for routine clinical care. When available, clinicians may be able to receive a lab report with detailed information about disease risk, outcome prediction, and specific indications about preferred treatments.

The role of IL-6 in dopamine dysregulation underlying anhedonia phenotype in rats

“…Anhedonia is a DA-dependent behaviour and a core feature for depression disorders. In both animal models and depressive patients, the most relevant biological mechanism of anhedonia is the ventral striatal hypoactivation, but dysfunctions in prefrontal cortex also play an important role in abnormal reward processing and impaired reward-related decision making [30]. In addition to changes in behavioural phenotype, our results demonstrated that chronic ACTH injection decreased TH levels in NAcS and ILC.…”

Current Understanding on Psilocybin for Major Depressive Disorder: A Review Focusing on Clinical Trials

“…The selected studies were very heterogeneous in their design, settings, subjects, and outcome measures. Thus, we first subdivided them into the following groups: (1) open label clinical trials (Table 1) and ( 2) double-blinded (DB) randomized clinical trials (RCTs) (Table 2).…”

“…Depression, a pervasive and debilitating mental health disorder, affects millions of individuals worldwide, contributing to substantial suffering and reduced quality of life [1]. Despite decades of research and therapeutic innovations, conventional treatments such as antidepressant medications and psychotherapy are not universally effective, leaving a significant proportion of individuals with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) [2,3].…”

A Critical View on New and Future Antidepressants

“…Overall results were positive, however unfortunately this line of research has not been carried on and at present there is not clear evidence of a readily translatable clinical use. However it remains of interest also considering the continuous development in biomarkers discoveries in depression [ 76 ]. An alternative approach is the administration of immunomodulatory interleukins, such as interleukin-2.…”