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The article presents a rather stark claim that nine RNA "markers" in a blood sample "were able to diagnose depression". Unfortunately, the article is shy on th

by jrapdx3 12y ago

The article presents a rather stark claim that nine RNA "markers" in a blood sample "were able to diagnose depression". Unfortunately, the article is shy on the details necessary to evaluate the merit of the claim. Since depression is a quite heterogeneous condition, it's unlikely that any particular test will give unambiguous results in every subset of depressed patients. There's bound to be "fuzziness" in a substantial portion of cases. ATM I don't have time to discuss the subject in any depth, but I do think the problem is going to be the media reporting this as an absolute fact, not only terribly misleading to the public, but even worse, undermining the researchers' good efforts.

virtue3 12y ago
I was wondering about the accurateness of a test against the fuzziness of the diagnoses as well. There really is an absolutely huge gamut in severity and type of mental disorder and it's so so painful. I was sincerely hoping this test setup would at least start to help alleviate the "lets try this anti-depressent until you feel better, and if that doesn't work hit you with another one" type random debugging on people's brains.
Florin_Andrei 12y ago
> I do think the problem is going to be the media reporting this as an absolute fact, not only terribly misleading to the public, but even worse, undermining the researchers' good efforts. This tends to apply to a very large fraction of all science-related news.
- roywiggins 12y ago
  This isn't even news, it's a press release.
seanflyon 12y ago
I don't think depression is well enough defined for an unambiguous test to even be possible. Google defines depression as "severe despondency and dejection, typically felt over a period of time and accompanied by feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy" which is a reasonable definition, but it really just means "very very sad". When we say someone is suffering from depression does that imply that the cause is medical in nature (not because something horrible happened to them)? How sad does someone have to be before they reach the threshold of depression?
bertil 12y ago
I think the fuzziness is a problem to assess treatment, and such a test would help sort different clinical realities behind that admittedly vague behavioural claim. Right now, the choice between the several treatment options (diet, exercice, talk-therapy, drugs; electro-choc and neurosurgery for the worst cases) are given based on more patient's consent than on scientific distinction between the possible issue with the underlying mechanism. It is great to give patient that choice: agency certainly helps for early on-sets. However, it's not enough. Depression is the result of factors: live events, recreational drug use, bad habits, genetic conditions -- but just considering those is still too vague. Having biological tests (imaging, blood samples, genetic) would help a classification that could be a great help. It certainly was with cancer, a single word that covers entirely different diseases.
spyder 12y ago
You cannot really blame the media reporting when there is a video with one of the researchers making the same claim (to have a blood test for depression).

by jrapdx3 12y ago

virtue3 12y ago

I was wondering about the accurateness of a test against the fuzziness of the diagnoses as well. There really is an absolutely huge gamut in severity and type of mental disorder and it's so so painful. I was sincerely hoping this test setup would at least start to help alleviate the "lets try this anti-depressent until you feel better, and if that doesn't work hit you with another one" type random debugging on people's brains.

Florin_Andrei 12y ago

> I do think the problem is going to be the media reporting this as an absolute fact, not only terribly misleading to the public, but even worse, undermining the researchers' good efforts. This tends to apply to a very large fraction of all science-related news.

roywiggins 12y ago
This isn't even news, it's a press release.

seanflyon 12y ago

I don't think depression is well enough defined for an unambiguous test to even be possible. Google defines depression as "severe despondency and dejection, typically felt over a period of time and accompanied by feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy" which is a reasonable definition, but it really just means "very very sad". When we say someone is suffering from depression does that imply that the cause is medical in nature (not because something horrible happened to them)? How sad does someone have to be before they reach the threshold of depression?

bertil 12y ago

I think the fuzziness is a problem to assess treatment, and such a test would help sort different clinical realities behind that admittedly vague behavioural claim. Right now, the choice between the several treatment options (diet, exercice, talk-therapy, drugs; electro-choc and neurosurgery for the worst cases) are given based on more patient's consent than on scientific distinction between the possible issue with the underlying mechanism. It is great to give patient that choice: agency certainly helps for early on-sets. However, it's not enough. Depression is the result of factors: live events, recreational drug use, bad habits, genetic conditions -- but just considering those is still too vague. Having biological tests (imaging, blood samples, genetic) would help a classification that could be a great help. It certainly was with cancer, a single word that covers entirely different diseases.

spyder 12y ago

You cannot really blame the media reporting when there is a video with one of the researchers making the same claim (to have a blood test for depression).