Medical imaging and the brain.

[OinkBoink]

I often read these articles where they say that so and so differences have been found in the brains of schizophrenics, bipolars, OCDers etc., or that certain brain differences have been found in people who have certain behavioral traits or intelligence levels, using imaging and other techniques.

If these brain differences are conclusive and reproducible, why are they not used in making a diagnosis of these illnesses/behaviors in people? Is it because it is simply not necessary?

Let's say I took 20 people. Among these 20 people, one person is bipolar, one is schizophrenic, one has OCD, one is a psychopath and one has a very high IQ. Apart from this, let's assume that all of them are sane in the sense that they have decent lives and jobs and none of them give the appearance of being "insane" (ever heard of high functioning schizophrenics who are professors etc.?). Can you brain scan these people and say which person has which illness/behavioral trait?

Apart from this, what about genetic testing? Can you do genetic testing and find out which person has what traits?

 

[Mixolydian]

Yes, brain scans are able to determine these differences. But it's still in its infancy. Right now it's strictly a research tool and is not ready for clinical use.

 

[Matthiasa]

If they did that, people would find out they are simply normal and have to learn to deal with it. If they don't get the tests they can simply get the medications.

Genetic testings would also only show probabilities of such traits, typically, so further testing would still need to be done.

 

[OinkBoink]

Yes, brain scans are able to determine these differences. But it's still in its infancy. Right now it's strictly a research tool and is not ready for clinical use.

Yes, but are they conclusive and reproducible?

Also, I would like a specific answer to this:

Let's say I took 20 people. Among these 20 people, one person is bipolar, one is schizophrenic, one has OCD, one is a psychopath and one has a very high IQ. Apart from this, let's assume that all of them are sane in the sense that they have decent lives and jobs and none of them give the appearance of being "insane" (ever heard of high functioning schizophrenics who are professors etc.?). Can you brain scan these people and say which person has which illness/behavioral trait?

 

[lxskllr]

Yes, but are they conclusive and reproducible?

Also, I would like a specific answer to this:

I don't follow the tech, but I'd bet you could nail it down statistically. Which is to say you'd tend to be right on many/most cases, but would screw up the outliers. Dangerous stuff.

 

[Mixolydian]

Yes, but are they conclusive and reproducible?

Not yet, which is why it's still being researched.

Also, I would like a specific answer to this:

The short answer is yes. The long answer is that it's still being researched.

 

[Gibsons]

Let's say I took 20 people. Among these 20 people, one person is bipolar, one is schizophrenic, one has OCD, one is a psychopath and one has a very high IQ. Apart from this, let's assume that all of them are sane in the sense that they have decent lives and jobs and none of them give the appearance of being "insane" (ever heard of high functioning schizophrenics who are professors etc.?). Can you brain scan these people and say which person has which illness/behavioral trait?

It certainly seems possible, maybe soon. But maybe it just never quite works so well.

Apart from this, what about genetic testing? Can you do genetic testing and find out which person has what traits?

Just mo - I think genetic testing will certainly be able to find a few things; ie he's got genetic marker A, therefore he's going to show disease traits X and Y.

But there might be many more cases where a marker's found that correlates to a disease trait, but not 100% (see BRCA and breast cancer).

It'll get trickier when multi trait effects start to get unravelled.

Then, there's the nature nurture debate, some people might be completely messed up due to experiences, but appear perfectly normal genetically and maybe even through any imaging.

ptsd can apparently be detected though.
http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/11296313/reload=0;jsessionid=SvOONYaF0MGw1IeKyj73.10

 

[OinkBoink]

So far, I haven't seen any study where you can take people, brain scan them and make out who has what, even in a statistical sense (even in a research setting).

An interesting article titled, "Brain Scans as Mind Readers? Don't Believe the Hype":

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-06/mf_neurohacks?currentPage=all

 

[Sust]

I often read these articles where they say that so and so differences have been found in the brains of schizophrenics, bipolars, OCDers etc., or that certain brain differences have been found in people who have certain behavioral traits or intelligence levels, using imaging and other techniques.

If these brain differences are conclusive and reproducible, why are they not used in making a diagnosis of these illnesses/behaviors in people? Is it because it is simply not necessary?

Let's say I took 20 people. Among these 20 people, one person is bipolar, one is schizophrenic, one has OCD, one is a psychopath and one has a very high IQ. Apart from this, let's assume that all of them are sane in the sense that they have decent lives and jobs and none of them give the appearance of being "insane" (ever heard of high functioning schizophrenics who are professors etc.?). Can you brain scan these people and say which person has which illness/behavioral trait?

Apart from this, what about genetic testing? Can you do genetic testing and find out which person has what traits?

It's seductive to think that our current state of technology is able to accurately describe how the brain operates to produce complex behaviors and emotions such as altruism or planning out a PB&J. Do not be fooled. Mapping functions onto singular areas of the brain might be possible for simple sensory functions, but not something as complex as cognition and emotion which likely uses vast landscapes across the brain and also probably involves a major sequential/simultaneous timing pattern as well. One example would be a computer whose aggregate parts help to render a video game for you to play, but if any one computer part goes down then the video game comes undone. Then you're left with trying to figure out whether it was the RAM, GPU, mobo, etc, but at least you sort of understand how the relatively simple computer parts work together. No one can say with absolute certainty how all of the brain parts work together because no one has invented the machine that can image your entire brain down to the spatial resolution of individual neuronal fibers/cell bodies AND the temporal resolution down to however many frames per microsecond. Once someone invents that, we're golden and then we can run these other studies.

Having said that, you also have to ask whether or not these psychiatric syndromes described by the medical profession arent also limited by our primitive technologies. For example, when someone rolls into the ER complaining of chest pain, it could be any number of things wrong from the heart through the lungs to the stomach. Fortunately for most of the other medicine disciplines, they actually have tests/studies that can help diagnose which is relatively more than what your average psychiatrist has on hand when someone rolls in complaining of attentional deficits for example. Still, mental health professionals have to play the hands we're all dealt even if the tech cant fill all of the knowledge gaps and everyone is doing the best they can with what we've got right now. The real question is how much social impairment is involved and whether that's enough reason for someone to give mental health treatment a try?

This general fuzziness of current neuroscience and tech also limits the usefulness of poorly informed/designed genetic testing too IMO. Imagine running a study where people coming in with complaints of chest pain were subjected to genetic testing. At best, it would be a mixed bag, but more than likely would turn out to be inconclusive.

 

[Mark R]

Let's say I took 20 people. Among these 20 people, one person is bipolar, one is schizophrenic, one has OCD, one is a psychopath and one has a very high IQ. Apart from this, let's assume that all of them are sane in the sense that they have decent lives and jobs and none of them give the appearance of being "insane" (ever heard of high functioning schizophrenics who are professors etc.?). Can you brain scan these people and say which person has which illness/behavioral trait?
?

In general, no.

While it is true that structural and functional brain imaging can show differences in certain diseases and other psychological trait, this does not directly translate into being able to predict the presence of a trait or a disorder from the basis of the imaging. This is a major issue for people performing medical imaging; even though research has shown a correlation between imaging and a trait, it does not translate to medical use.

The reason for this is the degree of interpersonal difference, and the size of these correlations. In general, the degree of variability between people is much greater (sometimes an order of magnitude greater) than is the degree of variability between traits. Research based on a large number of subjects, can show a difference in the mean values using statistical processes, even if the distributions overlap greatly. This overlap is a problem if you wish to look at an individual.

The research may be helpful in terms of helping elucidate which parts of the brain may be involved in specific disease states. But, few of these structural imaging markers have translated into useful medical tools.

 

[disappoint]

It's seductive to think that our current state of technology is able to accurately describe how the brain operates to produce complex behaviors and emotions such as altruism or planning out a PB&J. Do not be fooled.

Angry PET scan face is angry you fooled him into thinking you were preparing a PB&J sandwich.

Helluva drug this control stuff you speak of:

Looks like somebody took too many blows to the head. Poor misshapen mofo:

 

[olds]

I've done some scans in my basement.