Commentary: The best and worst of times – the prospects for magnetic resonance imaging ( MRI ) of developmental psychopathologies – a commentary on Horga et al. (2014)

In the accompanying Annual Research Review, Horga and colleagues provide a comprehensive overview of the current limitations of magnetic resonance imaging ( MRI ) of developmental psychopathologies focusing particularly on experimental design. Horga et al. are unsparing in their assessment of the problems that plague current clinical neuroimaging studies. We will not reiterate the long list of deficiencies in the imaging literature, which persist despite its impressive volume (PubMed lists more than 135,000 papers with the terms ‘magnetic resonance imaging’ and ‘brain’). Rather, in this Commentary, while we agree with Horga et al. that neuroimaging approaches merely represent one more types of tool, we look at where this leave us and the prospects (by attending to the lessons thoughtfully laid out by Horga and colleagues on how to place research design at the forefront in clinical neuroimaging) of better times ahead for our understanding of the pathophysiology of child‐ and adult‐onset developmental psychiatric conditions.