Researchers continue to pursue a biological laboratory test for some of the most common and serious mental disorders, as they’ve been doing now for over a decade. I think it’s always infinitely harder to test for something when you don’t really understand the basis of how it actually works in our brains:
Despite decades of research, the biological basis of depression is unknown, and the molecular and cellular targets of antidepressant treatment remain elusive, although it is likely that these drugs have one or more primary targets.
What’s the latest research saying?
In their study, Rasenick and colleagues compared brain samples from depressed people who had committed suicide with controls who had no history of psychiatric disorders. They found that while the total amount of Gs alpha was the same in the depressed and non-depressed, the depressed have a greater proportion of Gs alpha confined to lipid rafts (regions of receptor regulation).
So, no, the test isn’t coming any time soon given the researchers had to extract their samples from donated corpses’ brains. And more importantly, the researchers haven’t tested for whether the Gs alpha are confined to lipid rafts in only people with depression, because this is the only study done on humans so far.
Do we need a lab test for depression? Well, sure, it would be a positive thing to have if it was inexpensive (because it could confirm some biological marker for it, if such a thing is proven to exist reliably in all people with depression).
But right now, we have 5 questions for depression that can tell a person in about 1 minute whether they may have depression. A more in-depth diagnostic interview, given by an experienced mental health professional such as a psychologist can reliably detect the presence of depression in most people in under 90 minutes (which will still be faster and likely cheaper than the laboratory test).
Read the full article: Laboratory Test for Depression May Be Possible
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8 Responses to “Do we Need a Lab Test for Depression?” (Pingbacks/trackbacks not shown below)
314159pi at 12:13 pm on
March 13th, 2008
i felt the original article was optimistic because it contextualized the the biological depression test in terms of ideally matching patients with their most efficacious antidepressants. And that would be a real boon.
Paul Maurice Martin at 1:09 pm on
March 13th, 2008
Seems like the causes of depression are so complex that I doubt it will ever turn out there’s a straightforward link between biology and all cases of clinical depression.
I was depressed in my mid teens through early twenties and it ended literally overnight - a spontaneous version of the kind of experience sought in meditation. Same biology, new outlook - the event took place 25 years ago and it stuck.
I think there’s often a spiritual component to severe depression and that this tends to get downplayed or even overlooked.
John M. Grohol, Psy.D. at 1:44 pm on
March 13th, 2008
314159pi……… Indeed, if that were possible, that would be very cool. But we’re a long, long way away from such specificity in our treatments.
Paul, the interesting thing about tests for me is that if they can delineate depression regardless of cause, it still may be helpful to those who may not realize they are depressed…
I think the value to patients of a biological test for depression isn’t so much to ensure that the diagnosis is accurate as to validate their experience that their pain is really real. Both to validate it to themselves and to validate it to others.
Depression is no more and no less real with a biological test than it is without. Likewise for emotional pain. But there’s nothing like being able to tell someone who says “You need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps” that laboratory tests showed that you really have a real biological problem.
I’m not trying to denigrate anyone here. Denial of the reality of “psychological” as opposed to “physical” problems has big impacts on patients’ lives, and having a Real (read: laboratory) Test for it would help place what is a very real disorder into many peoples’ implicit definitions of “real disorder”.
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i felt the original article was optimistic because it contextualized the the biological depression test in terms of ideally matching patients with their most efficacious antidepressants. And that would be a real boon.
Seems like the causes of depression are so complex that I doubt it will ever turn out there’s a straightforward link between biology and all cases of clinical depression.
I was depressed in my mid teens through early twenties and it ended literally overnight - a spontaneous version of the kind of experience sought in meditation. Same biology, new outlook - the event took place 25 years ago and it stuck.
I think there’s often a spiritual component to severe depression and that this tends to get downplayed or even overlooked.
314159pi……… Indeed, if that were possible, that would be very cool. But we’re a long, long way away from such specificity in our treatments.
Paul, the interesting thing about tests for me is that if they can delineate depression regardless of cause, it still may be helpful to those who may not realize they are depressed…
I think the value to patients of a biological test for depression isn’t so much to ensure that the diagnosis is accurate as to validate their experience that their pain is really real. Both to validate it to themselves and to validate it to others.
Depression is no more and no less real with a biological test than it is without. Likewise for emotional pain. But there’s nothing like being able to tell someone who says “You need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps” that laboratory tests showed that you really have a real biological problem.
I’m not trying to denigrate anyone here. Denial of the reality of “psychological” as opposed to “physical” problems has big impacts on patients’ lives, and having a Real (read: laboratory) Test for it would help place what is a very real disorder into many peoples’ implicit definitions of “real disorder”.
