Inside the diagnostic grey zone: using machine learning to separate bipolar and major depression

feat

High misdiagnosis rates between bipolar and major depressive disorder cause real harm to patients and services. This new neuroimaging study tested whether brain connectivity and machine learning could do a better job of telling the two apart, with interesting but limited results.

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Can functional brain imaging of social judgments shed light on the gender imbalance in autism spectrum disorder?

social cognition

It is well-documented that there are gender differences in mental health (see for example this Men’s Health Forum publication (PDF) about key mental health issues affecting men). In early development, boys are at a significantly higher risk than girls for meeting diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), as well as other developmental problems (e.g. developmental [read the full story…]

Brain imaging reveals different pattern of activity in ADHD, which is partly normalised by medication

An image of a brain

How brain imaging can help us understand mental health problems and their treatment is another service that the mental elf team will hopefully be able to offer.  By blogging about interesting new studies we hope to help you pick up a wee bit of how MRI, CT, EEG and MEG adds to our understanding.  While [read the full story…]