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Isolating biomarkers for symptomatic states: considering symptom-substrate chronometry
1Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Molecular Psychiatry
|June 1, 2016
Summary
Objective biomarkers for psychiatric symptoms are challenging to find. Current study designs may miss dynamic symptom changes, suggesting a need for new approaches focusing on symptom timing for better biomarker discovery.
Area of Science:
- Psychopathology
- Biomarker Research
- Psychiatric Epidemiology
Background:
- Developing objective biomarkers for psychiatric conditions remains a significant challenge.
- Existing research often overlooks the impact of intra-individual symptom dynamics and inter-relationships on biomarker study designs.
Purpose of the Study:
- To critically review the implications of intra-individual symptom dynamics for biomarker study designs in psychopathology.
- To highlight the limitations of current designs in capturing fluctuating symptoms and propose alternative approaches.
Main Methods:
- Critical review of existing literature on psychopathology biomarker research.
- Analysis of ambulatory assessment study findings regarding symptom fluctuations.
- Consideration of symptom conceptualization and measurement developments.
Main Results:
- Widely used study designs, focusing on average symptom levels, may be suboptimal for detecting relationships with biological data, especially for fluctuating symptoms.
- These designs are less effective for symptoms with high-frequency fluctuations, reporting biases, or strong inter-symptom influences.
- Ambulatory assessment studies suggest that designs capturing symptom dynamics are crucial.
Conclusions:
- Rethinking biomarker study designs to incorporate intra-individual symptom chronometry is essential.
- Focusing on the timing and dynamics of symptoms may help identify patient subgroups with common pathological indicators.
- Future research should prioritize dynamic symptom assessment for more reliable biomarker identification in psychiatry.
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