Discovering informative biomarkers in psychiatry.

Abstract

World Psychiatry 22:2 June 2023 ophrenia and comorbid cannabis use disorder. This finding highlights the malleable nature of biological markers in the context of highly prevalent comorbidities (i.e., substance use disorders) which cooccur not only with schizophrenia but also with several other neurodevelopmental and mental disorders. Altogether, the insights from the AbiDargham et al’s review and the advances, limitations and opportunities discussed here suggest that, along with the excitement that novel approaches and technologies will likely bring to the biomarker discovery field, we need to remain mindful of the inherent challenges, particularly the biopsychosocial nature of psychiatric disorders and the multiple sources of interand intraindividual variability influencing clinical outcomes. We also need to work towards research endeavours that are better poised to address these challenges via collaboration between biological and psychosocial scientists, concerted largescale international efforts to improve and harmonize both biological and behavioural measures (as well as their underpinning ontologies), and incorporation of people’s living experiences into our definitions and measurements of biomarkers.