Premium
The search for peripheral biomarkers for major depression: Benefiting from successes in the biology of smoking
Author(s) -
Philibert Robert,
Gunter Helen M.,
Kolassa IrisTatjana
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
american journal of medical genetics part b: neuropsychiatric genetics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.393
H-Index - 126
eISSN - 1552-485X
pISSN - 1552-4841
DOI - 10.1002/ajmg.b.32227
Subject(s) - depression (economics) , confounding , biomarker , medicine , psychology , biology , pathology , biochemistry , economics , macroeconomics
The search for robust, clinically useful markers for major depression (MD) has been relatively unproductive. This is unfortunate because MD is one of the largest socio‐economic challenges for much of the world and the development of reliable biomarkers for MD could aid in the prevention or treatment of this common syndrome. In this editorial, we compare the approaches taken in the search for biomarkers for MD to that of the more successful searches for biomarkers for tobacco use, and identify several substantive barriers. We suggest that many of the existing clinical repositories used in these biomarkers searches for MD may be of limited value. We conclude that in the future greater attention should be given to the clinical definitions, characterization of confounding environmental factors and age of subjects included in studies. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.