Breaking down depression and anxiety into 6 types based on brain circuitry

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-06-17 19:00

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US and Australian scientists say they've broken down depression and anxiety into six types based on the brain circuitry of 801 patients who were not being treated, and 250 who were part of a trial that compared drug-based therapy with behavioural therapy. The six 'biotypes' were distinguished by symptoms, behavioural performance in general and emotional tests of thinking abilities, and responses to drug-based and behavioural therapies, the authors say. The findings could provide a more accurate picture of the variation in cases of depression and anxiety, they say, and could help doctors target the most appropriate treatments to patients.

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Journal/
conference: Nature Medicine

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: The Westmead Institute for Medical Research, The University of Sydney, Stanford University, USA

Funder: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (grant nos. R01MH101496 (to L.M.W.; NCT02220309), UH2HL132368 (to J.M. and L.M.W.; NCT02246413), U01MH109985 (to L.M.W.) and U01MH136062 (to L.M.W. and J.M.)) and the Gustavus and Louise Pfeiffer Research Foundation (to L.M.W.). Providing treatment data, iSPOT-D (NCT00693849) was sponsored by Brain Resource Ltd.

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