Mental Illness Biomarkers Detected Through Neuroimaging Analysis
In a significant breakthrough, a new study published in the journal Biological Psychiatry has identified predictive brain imaging-based biomarkers for mental illness in adolescents. This research, led by Yihong Yang, PhD, from the Neuroimaging Research Branch at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, reveals that adolescent major depressive disorder (MDD) and anxiety disorders (AD) exhibit characteristic alterations in brain functional connectivity.
The study investigates the organization of brain circuits through their interaction with one another over time. Using modern neuroimaging techniques such as resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) analysis, the research was conducted using brain-imaging data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, which includes nearly 12,000 children.
Yang's team found that key predictive biomarkers include increased connectivity within the Default Mode Network (DMN), especially in the posterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex. There were also altered connectivity in the Salience Network (SN), involving the anterior cingulate cortex and insula. Furthermore, the team observed dysregulated connectivity between the limbic system (including the amygdala and hippocampus) and sensorimotor systems.
These patterns are shared across adolescent MDD and AD but also show some disorder-specific connectivity differences. John Krystal, MD, editor of Biological Psychiatry, emphasised the importance of better ways to identify adolescents at risk for mental illness in the post-Covid era. He suggested that neuroimaging data could illuminate risk for mental illness across the spectrum of diagnoses.
Additional insights from contemporaneous studies complement this by linking structural and functional brain abnormalities in areas like the left ventral posterior cingulate cortex and disrupted resting-state connectivity in attention and Default Mode Networks with self-injury thoughts and behaviors transition in adolescents. Dysfunctions in reward system circuits observed through functional neuroimaging also correlate with depression symptom severity and prognosis in adolescents.
In essence, the primary predictive imaging biomarkers revolve around functional connectivity disruptions in DMN and Salience Network, with involvement of limbic regions during adolescence, serving as promising indicators for mental illness such as depression and anxiety. These findings provide evidence for a transdiagnostic brain-based measure that underlies individual differences in developing psychiatric disorders in early adolescence.
[1] Yihong Yang et al., "Brain Imaging-Based Biomarkers Predictive of Mental Illness in Adolescents," Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier. [2] Contemporary Study 1, Journal Title. [3] Contemporary Study 2, Journal Title.
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