fMRI May Predict Success of CBT

With a dizzying array of available medications and therapies, finding the right treatment for a depressed patient often involves trial and error. Pre-treatment fMRI scans might someday contribute to clinicians’ treatment choices according to a new study in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Researchers scanned the brains of 14 depressed patients prior to their enrollment in CBT and found a correlation between symptom improvement and brain-activation. Specifically, those participants who showed prolonged high activity in the amygdala and prolonged low activity in the subgenual cingulate cortex in response to emotional stimuli (a pattern indicative of poor emotional control) demonstrated greater improvement with CBT. The researchers suggest that patients whose problems stem, at least in part, from an inability to regulate emotion might benefit most from CBT. Further studies with larger enrollment are warranted. http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/163/4/735