Biomarkers for Psychiatric Disorders
Biological markers, as physiological indicators of disease, hold immense promise for diagnostics and clinical drug trials. While for other complex disorders like diabetes and heart disease a limited number of markers are at hand, there are currently
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Christoph W. Turck Editor
Biomarkers for Psychiatric Disorders
Editor Christoph W. Turck Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry Kraepelinstrasse 2-10 D-80804 Munich, Germany [email protected]
ISSN: xxx-x-xxx-xxxxx-x e-ISSN: xxx-x-xxx-xxxxx-x ISBN: 978-1-387-79250-7 e-ISBN: 978-1-387-79251-4 DOI: 10.1007/978-1-387-79251-4 Library of Congress Control Number: 2008930767 © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper springer.com
Preface
Biomarkers are receiving a great deal of attention in the life sciences and the global market for disease - specific biomarkers is expected to see a significant increase in the years to come. Among the different disease areas, psychiatric disorders are without doubt the most challenging in terms of understanding their pathophysiology, drug development and patient treatment. The limited knowledge of etiology and pathogenesis, the great clinical heterogeneity, uncertain phenotype boundaries, genetic overlap between psychiatric disorders and the great influence of non-genetic factors all contribute to this situation. Although a detailed pathobiology of psychiatric disorders remains elusive, it is now believed that several neural circuits located in more than one area of the brain are involved. There are presumably many ways in which these circuits can be disrupted through the effects of several genes that code for protein products, which in turn have an impact on metabolic and signaling pathways. As a consequence, biomarkers for an apparently similar disease phenotype may vary. Only through an improved understanding of the neural circuitries will it be possible to better stratify different disease phenotypes and identify the relevant biomarkers. Good animal models representing distinct features of a psychiatric disorder phenotype are one way to come up with specific biomarkers. Here a good representation of the relevant psychiatric disease mechanism in an animal disease model is mandatory but challenging, to enable a pre-clinical to clinical study translation. Not surprising is the fact that because the diagnostic tools used now for psychiatric disorders, which are restricted to the evaluation of behavioral and clinical phenotypes, many scientific studies are compromised. What the field therefore needs more than anything else are specific and
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