Neuroimaging-based variability in subtyping biomarkers for psychiatric heterogeneity

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Neuroimaging-based subtyping aims to address heterogeneity in psychiatric disorders.
• The clinical utility and replicability of these neuro-subtypes remain uncertain.
• Previous research has not fully explored how different neuroimaging modalities affect subtyping outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how the selection of neuroimaging measures influences the derivation of neuro-subtypes in psychiatric populations.
• To assess the clinical and cognitive differences between neuro-subtypes identified using various neuroimaging techniques.
• To evaluate the concordance of neuro-subtyping solutions across different modalities and datasets.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of a heterogeneous psychiatric dataset (n=566) including controls, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), and PTSD&TBI cases.
• Identification of neuro-subtypes using structural, resting-state, and task-based neuroimaging measures.
• Replication of findings in an independent dataset (n=1642) of major depressive disorder (MDD) and controls.

Main Results:

• Neuro-subtypes derived from each imaging modality exhibited high internal validity.
• No significant differences in clinical or cognitive profiles were observed between the identified neuro-subtypes.
• Substantial impact of neuroimaging measure choice on neuro-subtype identification, resulting in low cross-modality concordance.
• Similar variability in neuro-subtyping was confirmed in the independent MDD dataset.

Conclusions:

• The choice of neuroimaging modality significantly influences neuro-subtype identification in psychiatric disorders.
• Current neuroimaging-based subtyping methods may not reliably delineate clinically meaningful patient groups.
• The anticipated strong relationships between neuro-subtypes and clinical features are challenging to establish, questioning the clinical utility of current approaches.