February 17, 2014

biomarkers for depression

Around 1 in 6 people suffer from major depressive disorder at some point in their lives. Currently there is no way to predict the at-risk groups, but researchers at the University of Cambridge have been attempting to find biomarkers for use in adolescents.

Publishing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), the researchers report their findings into early morning cortisol as a biomarker for depression in boys with high depressive symptoms.

• How robust are the biomarkers? How do we know that they work?
• Why is there a gender difference? Does this mean that depression is more of an issue for adolescent boys, or that the biomarkers are only valid for adolescent boys?
• Does this mean that we should start nationwide testing for biomarkers?
• Is there an issue of false positives and false negatives – and how common would they be?
• What is the role of cortisol? Is it causative or correlative?
• Could this lead to more biomarkers?

Speakers:

Prof Ian Goodyer, Professor of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Cambridge (Prof Goodyer will be dialling in as he will be out of the country)

Prof Joe Herbert, Emeritus Professor of Neuroscience, John van Geest Centre for Brain Repair, University of Cambridge

Prof Barbara Sahakian, Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology at the Department of Psychiatry and MRC/Wellcome Trust Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, University of Cambridge