A true biomarker?
In a comment, Joseph F. Goldberg, MD, clinical professor of psychiatry at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, said the study is an “interesting use of this technology to differentiate physiological correlates of mood states.”
However, he said the findings are limited and preliminary because the sample sizes were small and the measures weren’t repeated.
Dr. Joseph F. Goldberg
In addition, medications or other factors that may influence electrophysiologic activity, such as anxiety or panic, were not considered, and Dr. Goldberg noted the researchers did not compare the results with those in patients with other diagnoses.
“So, I don’t think one could call this a biomarker in the sense of having diagnostic specificity,” he said, making the comparison with body temperature, which “goes up in an infection; but fever alone doesn’t tell us much about the nature or cause of a presumed infection. More studies are needed before generalizable conclusion can be drawn.”
Also commenting on the research, Paolo Ossola, MD, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry, department of medicine and surgery, University of Parma, Italy, described the study as exploratory but preliminary.
He said the researchers have “laid the foundation for a new approach to diagnosing and treating bipolar disorders.
“The shift from the subjective to the biological level could also promote understanding of the underlying mechanistic dynamics of mood swings.”
The study was funded by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III and a Baszucki Brain Research Fund grant from the Milken Foundation. The authors have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.