Posted by Robert_Burton_1621 on February 21, 2015, at 3:04:54
For anyone interested in the nosology of depressions and, in particular, the bearing which progress in nosology may have on the classifications authorised by DSM-5, Professor Gordon Parker and his team have just published research which is claimed to isolate (for the first time) an empirically identifiable form of neurobiological dysfunction which is specific to melancholic depression.
"Disrupted Effective Connectivity of Cortical Systems Supporting Attention and Interoception in Melancholia" (JAMA Psychiatry, 18 Feb 2015):
http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2119327
Part of the resistance to reform of the DSM-5 typologies rests on scepticism as to whether melancholia is a distinct biological form of depression which ought be distinguished clinically from non-melancholic kinds.
The results of this recent research may have the effect of rendering such scepticism less presumptively cogent than it has hitherto been.
"Issues for DSM-5: Whither Melancholia? The Case for Its Classification as a Distinct Mood Disorder" Am J Psychiatry (2010) 167 (7):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20595426
What do interested people here think about the plausibility and desirability of classifying melancholia as a distinct nosological type and the consequences such classification may have on diagnosis, treatment, and in particular medication "algorithms"?
Professor Parker has been engaged in the broader project of melancholia research for decades. His important edited collection of papers on the topic can be partly read on google books.
"Melancholia: A Disorder of Movement and Mood
A Phenomenological and Neurobiological Review", Cambridge UP, 1996
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