Many people question the fact that psychiatrists often diagnose mental illness based on symptoms alone, even when no biological basis for a particular mental disorder can be found — where’s the proof? they ask. Now, a new study from Stanford not only collects some hard evidence but also offers unexpected insight into potential causes or outcomes of psychiatric conditions. Analyzing whole-brain images from nearly 16,000 people, researchers identified a similar pattern — a loss of gray matter in three brain structures — across a spectrum of disorders commonly believed to be distinct.
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The team identified three separate brain structures, several centimeters apart from one another, where patients showed a decreased volume of gray matter in comparison to the healthy volunteers. Surprisingly, this loss of gray-matter was similar across patients with different psychiatric conditions, the researchers found.
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“Secondary analyses also suggest that these findings are likely not due to medication effects,” wrote the authors.
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