Precision Psychiatry and Dual Disorders

Addiction co-occurs with distinct pathological personality traits, other psychiatric disorders or symptoms and cognitive impairment, which are known as dual disorders or co-occurring disorders. This symptomatic high concurrency suggests that both conditions are in some ways causally linked. Research is ongoing to identify distinctive neurobehavioral mechanisms and endophenotypes that predispose individuals to compulsive drug use and other mental disorders. Research is also providing new revelations about the diverse effects of substances on individuals, including differences according to sex. Today we know that the same substance may give rise to different behavioral, affective, cognitive, and sensory effects across different individuals.

This state-of the art review tends to address the concept of precision psychiatry and dual disorders. The PubMed database was searched for the last 15 years to identify those articles that reported neurobiological perspectives on dual disorders, addiction and other mental disorders, precision medicine, and precision psychiatry.

There has been considerable progress made in recent years in relation to the study of addiction and dual disorders. The concept of dual disorders attempts to capture not only the persistence of substance use and substance seeking but also the evident vulnerability of specific subpopulations to switch from controlled to compulsive drug use. Precision medicine is focused on identifying this individual vulnerability to illness as much as the individual response to treatment. Psychiatry is fully committed to this goal. Regarding addiction, essential precision medicine advances will be possible if concerted efforts are made in the discovery of biological variations and environmental factors that contribute to individual vulnerability to addictive disorders and dual disorders, together with the identification of moderators of treatment response.

Here we survey the discoveries, future research directions, and translational relevance of the concept of precision psychiatry for dual disorders. The review may offer new perspectives on this issue and highlight a new way to see and to think about dual disorders.