Researchers of Northeastern University are working on predicting how symptoms of psychiatric disorders develop in teenagers. Their new prediction model offers an important tool to address anxiety and depression in the U.S. with the help of scans of brain activity in seven-year-olds.
Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli is a professor of Psychology at Northeastern University. She is also the lead author of the study published in JAMA Psychiatry where the researchers identified specific patterns of activity in the brains of children and predicted how symptoms of depression, anxiety, and attention deficit hyperactivity progress. She says that it is an entirely new way of looking at the brain just by looking at temporal correlations. These networks of brain activity are extremely helpful in terms of neuro prediction. The team analysed the flow of blood in synchronisation through different regions of the brain at rest. They found that resting-state activity creates patterns or networks linked to depression and bipolar disorder. These patterns of brain activity show that they can predict the progress of anxiety, depression, and attentional symptoms more accurately than other tools used to diagnose mental conditions.
According to Whitfield-Gabrieli, conventional research on brain activity and psychiatric disorders has mostly focused on children who are at risk of depression. However, her study focused on a diverse sample of children who were not preselected based on genetic or clinical risk for psychiatric conditions. It focused on 54 seven-year-old children. The researchers coupled that data with activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is important for focusing, controlling impulses, and other highly complex cognitive functions. They found that stronger associations of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the medial prefrontal cortex at age seven predicted attention problems at age 11. Also, weaker associations of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and subgenual anterior cingulate predicted anxiety and depression problems by age 11. The predictions were also successfully replicated on separate groups of children with and without a family history of depression.
“We’re finding cures for all of these other diseases, but we still need a huge help with psychiatry, because we don’t understand the pathophysiology of the disorders and what treatment to give them,” Whitfield-Gabrieli says.
Shahjadi Jemim Rahman