Reading the Mind in the Blood

When it comes to diagnosis and prognosis, mental health conditions are among the most elusive. What works perfectly for one patient may fail utterly or even make the problem worse for another, and the range of medications available to treat disorders like depression is ever-broadening. At the moment, doctors treat through trial and error, prescribing one type of antidepressant after another until they strike upon the one that works for a given patient. There’s currently no better way of doing it – but that may be about to change. Researchers from King’s College London have developed a potential blood test to determine whether or not patients with depression are likely to respond to conventional treatments.