Dr Alexander Niculescu
A team from the Indiana University School of Medicine launched the blood test in April, claiming it to be psychiatry’s first-ever biological answer to diagnosing a mood disorder.
“Our study shows that it is possible to have a blood test for depression and bipolar disorder, that have clinical utility, can distinguish between the two, and match people to the right medications,” said psychiatrist and geneticist Dr Alexander Niculescu, who led the research.
“This avoids years of trials and error, hospitalisations, and side-effects. As these are very common disorders, we think we can do a lot of good with this and other tests and apps we have developed.”
The study delved into the biological basis of mood disorders, developing a tool to distinguish which type of mood disorder a person has – depression or bipolar disorder.
To develop the test, Dr Niculescu’s team drew on its 15 years of previous research into how psychiatry relates to blood gene expression biomarkers – measurable indicators of a biological state in the form of RNA, DNA, proteins or other molecules.
Every system in the body – the brain, the nervous system, the immune system – has a common developmental route, says Dr Niculescu.
“For example, when you’re stressed or depressed, there are psycho-neurological mechanisms, hormones and other things that are released that affect your blood and your immune system,” he told Al Jazeera.
In the first stage of the study, the team identified a list of RNA biomarkers that could track mood states over a period of time. After validating them in an independent cohort of subjects with clinically severe depression and clinically severe mania, they finalised 26 biomarkers, which they whittled down to 12 through further testing.
With these findings, doctors would be able to send patients to a lab for bloodwork to indicate the causes of their symptoms, just as they would for a physical illness, says Dr Niculescu.
