Stanford study identifies six depression biotypes for personalized treatment

Stanford MedicineJun 17 2024

Around 30% of people with depression have what's known as treatment-resistant depression, meaning multiple kinds of medication or therapy have failed to improve their symptoms. And for up to two-thirds of people with depression, treatment fails to fully reverse their symptoms to healthy levels. Using a machine learning approach known as cluster analysis to group the patients' brain images, they identified six distinct patterns of activity in the brain regions they studied.

"To our knowledge, this is the first time we've been able to demonstrate that depression can be explained by different disruptions to the functioning of the brain," Williams said. "In essence, it's a demonstration of a personalized medicine approach for mental health based on objective measures of brain function."

One of the six biotypes uncovered in the study showed no noticeable brain activity differences in the imaged regions from the activity of people without depression. Williams believes they likely haven't explored the full range of brain biology underlying this disorder -; their study focused on regions known to be involved in depression and anxiety, but there could be other types of dysfunction in this biotype that their imaging didn't capture.

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