Authors question overreliance on MRI studies

There are many MRI and functional MRI (fMRI) studies that may shed light on pathobiology of psychiatric disorders, but recent reports relying on popular MRI research are highly sensitive to artifacts such as head motion and breathing that may affect the results, researchers write. The uncritical acceptance of these studies, which may be fallacious, risks spreading misinformation to both clinicians and patients about biological underpinnings of psychiatric disorders. They noted that a century ago, psychiatric research focused on postmortem brain investigations looking for anatomical lesions, with many findings reported — none of which has stood the test of time. Now, there are many studies of anatomical measurements based on MRI scans of psychiatric patients compared to healthy controls. Patients with anxiety disorders have amygdala volume changes, patients with depression have smaller hippocampi, and patients with schizophrenia have reductions in cortical measurements — so the studies say.
Source: The Brown University Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology Update - Category: Psychiatry Tags: News Source Type: research