Neuroimaging and Psychiatry: The Long Road from Bench to Bedside, by Helen Mayberg

And in 2014, the Emory University neuropsychiatrist Helen S. Mayberg, a major figure in the field of depression neuroimaging, pessimistically admitted that “the claims of clinics that they can reliably use structural or functional brain scans” for diagnostic and treatments goals “is without medical or scientific support.” Even worse, such claims are “beyond the scope of current research and give false hope to patients and their families” (Mayberg 2014, S34).

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Helen Mayberg at Emory University School of Medicine

Abstract

Advances in neuroscience have revolutionized our understanding of the central nervous system. Neuroimaging technologies, in particular, have begun to reveal the complex anatomical, physiological, biochemical, genetic, and molecular organizational structure of the organ at the center of that system: the human brain. More recently, neuroimaging technologies have enabled the investigation of normal brain function and are being used to gain important new insights into the mechanisms behind many neuropsychiatric disorders. This research has implications for psychiatric diagnosis, treatment, and risk assessment. However, with some exceptions, neuroimaging is still a research tool-not ready for use in clinical psychiatry.

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Mayberg, Helen. 2014. “Neuroimaging and Psychiatry: The Long Road from Bench to Bedside.” Hastings C...