Finding Bipolar Disorder with MRI

[Glen]

Finding Bipolar Disorder with MRI

The article will continue over the next three days.

[ncc1701]

Heya Glen,

Bookmarked it and will follow up.

Thanks!

--ncc--

[Glen]

Part 2.

http://www.technologyreview.com/BioTech/wt...173,304,p1.html

"When we compared all the bipolar patients in any mood state with their matched normal control subjects, we found that two areas of the brain were significantly different," Port says. Port and his team also identified changes in many regions of the brains of people with bipolar disorder that indicated whether they were in a manic state or depressed. "We found a chemical measure of the mood state," he says.

So has Port found the long-sought diagnostic test for bipolar disorder? Does his chemical fingerprint reliably identify people who have bipolar disorder and exclude those who don't?

Maybe, but he can't be sure yet. "We think we're on to something good," he says, but "we have to check it and make sure it will be clinically useful." It's a question of trying the technique with enough patients to be sure that it is statistically valid -- that it won't produce too many false positives or false negatives. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be good enough to add useful information to what psychiatrists can discern through their traditional methods of diagnosis, interviews, and analyses of patient histories.

If Port is correct, however, and the technique proves itself, it would be a landmark in psychiatric research: a diagnostic test for bipolar disorder. And if the technique works with bipolar disorder, it could be adaptable to other psychiatric illnesses

[Weaseltine Cracker]

Thanks for posting these links to the articles. Very interesting, indeed.

--Weasel