A third factor is genetic risk. Certain genes are associated with a higher likelihood of developing mental disorders. These risk genes differ from disease-causing genes, which can directly contribute to a specific condition. Instead, mental health disorders are influenced by many genetic variations, each contributing a small amount to a person’s overall risk.
Researchers have found that multiple risk genes are linked to several mental disorders. The combined influence of these genetic variations is known as a polygenic risk score. This score may eventually provide a more comprehensive estimate of an individual’s vulnerability to mental illness.
Genetic biomarkers are not yet ready for routine clinical use. However, combining genetic information with psychosocial risk factors could help move psychiatry closer to precision medicine, in which prevention and treatment are tailored to each patient.
The Future of the DSM
In 2013, psychiatrist Henry Nasrallah conducted an online survey of colleagues who visited the website of Current Psychiatry, a magazine he edited. He reported that 65% of respondents expected the future DSM-6 to include laboratory tests when diagnosing mental illness. At the time, that expectation may have seemed premature.
Thirteen years later, researchers are increasingly working to incorporate biological information into psychiatric diagnosis, one discovery at a time.
Although the DSM is not perfect, it gives mental health professionals a shared language and conceptual framework for supporting patients and their families throughout the course of mental illness.
Scientific research is revealing an important truth: mental disorders are highly complex and cannot always be explained by a single cause. Still, as research advances, integrating neuroscience into the DSM could give clinicians a broader, more evidence-based understanding of mental health.
In the future, patients may visit a doctor with results from genetic tests, brain scans and blood tests. Medical teams could then use this information alongside a patient’s symptoms and life experiences to make more accurate diagnoses and develop personalized treatment plans.
That is my vision for the future of psychiatry.
Anand Kumar is a professor and chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois Chicago.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Source: arstechnica.com