A new research study conducted by scientists at the University of Birmingham, England, revealed that depression treatments may be effective for psychosis.
According to scientists at the University of Birmingham’s Institute of Mental Health, depression may be an intrinsic part of early-onset psychotic disorders that must be addressed along with other, more salient symptoms to improve patient outcomes.
Depression is often identified alongside psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia in the early stages of the disorder, but is not currently routinely treated. In a new study published in the Schizophrenia Bulletin, researchers set out to learn more about the associations between depression and psychosis, and especially whether There are similarities in brain structure that could aid in future early-stage diagnostic pathways.
The data was collected from 1,700 patients as part of a large-scale European study that uses machine learning to find ways to predict how people with recent psychosis will recover.
Their results showed that, in fact, there was little difference in patients’ depressive symptoms or in structural changes in the brain in depressed patients, with and without psychosis. This demonstrates that there is no subset of patients with depression and psychosis, but rather that depression may be a part substantially from psychosis in the majority of patients.