Neuroimaging in Psychiatric Disorders

Abstract

Summary: In psychiatry, neuroimaging facilitates the diagnosis of psychiatric disorders and the development of new medications. It is used to detect structural lesions causing psychosis and to differentiate depression from neurodegenerative disorders or brain tumors. Functional neuroimaging, mostly in the form of molecular neuroimaging with positron emission tomography or single photon emission tomography, facilitates the identification of therapeutic targets, the determination of the dose of a new drug needed to occupy its target in the brain, and the selection of patients for clinical trials. © 2010 The American Soceity for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics, Inc. (outside the US).