Methodological and clinical challenges associated with biomarkers for psychiatric disease: A scoping review
Abstract
Over the past decade, psychiatric research has been on an important hunt for biomarkers of psychiatric disease. In psychiatry, the term "biomarker" is a broad umbrella term used to identify any biological variable that can be objectively measured and applied to a diagnosis; this includes genetic and epigenetic assessments, hormone levels, measures of neuro-anatomy and many other scientific modalities. However, despite hundreds of studies on the topic being published yearly and other medical specialties having success in discovering biomarkers, clinical psychiatric practice has not had the same success. This paper aims to consolidate the many opinions on the search for psychiatric biomarkers to suggest key methodological and clinical challenges that psychiatric biomarker research faces. Psychiatry as a specialty has many fundamental differences compared to other medical specialties in methods of diagnosing, underlying etiology and disease pathologies that may be limiting the success of biomarker research in itself and puts strict requirements on the research being conducted. The academic and clinical environment in which the research is being conducted also heavily influences the translation of the findings. Finally, once biomarkers are identified, more often than not they are inapplicable to clinical settings, unable to integrate into clinical practice and fail to outperform current diagnostic practices and guidelines. We also make six recommendations for more promising futur…
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Factors including time of day or length of time since last meal are known to impact the levels of certain biomarkers (e.g., cytokines, gene expression, or cortisol).
“Factors including time of day or length of time since last meal are known to impact the levels of certain biomarkers (e.g., cytokines, gene expression, or cortisol) 57 .”
From Candidate diagnostic biomarkers for neurodevelopmental disorders in children and adolescents: a systematic review (2023) · cites this paper as [57]
An alternative approach would be the use of post-mortem brain tissues, which would boost the translational links between animal models of neurodevelopmental disorders and studies in living humans, although such studies are not informative on brain activity.
“An alternative approach would be the use of post-mortem brain tissues, which would boost the translational links between animal models of neurodevelopmental disorders and studies in living humans, although it should be considered that such studies are not informative on brain activity 57 .”
From Candidate diagnostic biomarkers for neurodevelopmental disorders in children and adolescents: a systematic review (2023) · cites this paper as [57]
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- Authors
- Kirkpatrick, R. H., Munoz, D. P., Khalid-Khan, S., & Booij, L.
- Affiliations
- Queen's University (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Kirkpatrick, Ryan H.
- Booij, Linda
- Venue
- Journal of Psychiatric Research
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2021-11
- Volume
- 143
- Pages
- 572-579
- ISSN
- 0022-3956 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3104153754
- Cited by
- 41
- References
- 14
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 4
- FWCI
- 9.64
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Psychiatric Research (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Queen's University
- Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Santé
- Canada Research Chairs
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Mental Health and Psychiatry
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Bipolar Disorder and Treatment
- Keywords
- psychiatric biomarkers, psychiatric diagnosis, genetic biomarkers, epigenetic biomarkers, neuroanatomical biomarkers, hormonal biomarkers, translation to clinical practice, clinical implementation of biomarkers
- MeSH terms
- Mental Disorders, Humans, Psychiatry, Biomarkers, Epigenomics
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