Name: connecting psychiatry
Keywords: Biomarkers

The implementation of biomarkers is not as advanced in psychiatry as in certain other areas of medicine.¹ While frequently used in conditions such as cancer, diabetes, or Huntington’s disease, there are no validated or widely used biomarkers available to support the management of neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depressive disorder.^1,2 There remains a major opportunity for the development of biomarkers that may improve care and contribute to understanding that leads to new treatments for these conditions.¹

Biomarkers for symptoms common across diagnoses?

The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative has led to new ways of conceptualizing psychiatric disorders, through the mapping of different aspects of mental disorders such as neural circuitry, genetics, and cognitive and behavioral processes. In this way, it is possible to identify cognitive and behavioral constructs that cut across traditional diagnostic categories (e.g. DSM-5 diagnoses).¹ Given that many symptoms or features of mental illness are common across multiple DSM-5 diagnoses (take, for example, working memory impairments or delusions), adopting the RDoC approach could allow for panels of biomarkers to be discovered for specific constructs, which could enable the discovery and development of new interventions.¹ A broad aim would be the development of scalable biomarkers to inform the management of symptoms and aspects of conditions that are most troublesome to patients, thus reducing the burden of their disorder and potentially improving their quality of life. With biomarkers showing considerable potential, they may be a great potential ally in the pursuit of more targeted and holistic care in psychiatry.

Cite this infographic article as Where Are All the Biomarkers? Connecting Psychiatry. Published May 2023. Accessed [month day, year]. [URL]

DSM-5, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition; RDoC, Research Domain Criteria.