About this Research Topic
This Research Topic aims at using multi-“omics” approaches to identify biomarkers of neurodevelopmental diseases.
In the era of the predictive medicine, a biomarker approach to diagnosis and treatment potentially represents a more valid way to subclassify complex mental disorders, and may offer a way to standardize and improve diagnostic assessment. Moreover, the identification of biomarkers should provide insights into disease etiology and mechanisms, and contribute to individualized therapies. To date, although biomarkers are being used to predict, categorise and treat diseases such as cancer, there are no clinical tests for diagnosis in psychiatry. Schizophrenia, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Autism, Epilepsy, are genetically complex—meaning that phenotypic outcomes are influenced by interactions between many genes and gene products and many exogenous factors. A large number of causal gene variants defined by GWAS, are catalyzing biomarker discovery but for the most part, disease mechanisms remain poorly understood.
Although there are treatments for several of these pathologies, mechanisms of action are still unclear, and no biological predictors of treatment response are available yet. The identification of drug response biomarkers would allow physicians to better tailor treatment.
This Research Topic is focused on the effort to discover and validate biomarkers associated with the differential diagnosis and treatments of the major neurodevelopmental diseases. This Research Topic is open to all research using multi-“omics” science approaches such as genomics and epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolimcs, pharmacogenomics and neuroimaging linked to these pathologies. Studies can be focused on human, animal models and in vitro approaches. Bioinformatics and statistical approaches including the use of predictive algorithms based on omics data are particularly of interest.
We encourage original research articles offering new hypotheses or insights into disease etiology or pathogenesis, new information of action mechanisms of drugs, potential therapeutic targets, identification of biomarkers useful for diagnosis and treatment. We also encourage reviews including meta-analytic approaches.
Given the acute need of identifying useful biomarkers associated to diagnosis and treatment in neurodevelopmental diseases combined with the explosive growth of “omics” data availability, this is the right time to exploit bioinformatics/systems biology approaches for biomarkers discovery in psychiatry.
In the era of the predictive medicine, a biomarker approach to diagnosis and treatment potentially represents a more valid way to subclassify complex mental disorders, and may offer a way to standardize and improve diagnostic assessment. Moreover, the identification of biomarkers should provide insights into disease etiology and mechanisms, and contribute to individualized therapies. To date, although biomarkers are being used to predict, categorise and treat diseases such as cancer, there are no clinical tests for diagnosis in psychiatry. Schizophrenia, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Autism, Epilepsy, are genetically complex—meaning that phenotypic outcomes are influenced by interactions between many genes and gene products and many exogenous factors. A large number of causal gene variants defined by GWAS, are catalyzing biomarker discovery but for the most part, disease mechanisms remain poorly understood.
Although there are treatments for several of these pathologies, mechanisms of action are still unclear, and no biological predictors of treatment response are available yet. The identification of drug response biomarkers would allow physicians to better tailor treatment.
This Research Topic is focused on the effort to discover and validate biomarkers associated with the differential diagnosis and treatments of the major neurodevelopmental diseases. This Research Topic is open to all research using multi-“omics” science approaches such as genomics and epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolimcs, pharmacogenomics and neuroimaging linked to these pathologies. Studies can be focused on human, animal models and in vitro approaches. Bioinformatics and statistical approaches including the use of predictive algorithms based on omics data are particularly of interest.
We encourage original research articles offering new hypotheses or insights into disease etiology or pathogenesis, new information of action mechanisms of drugs, potential therapeutic targets, identification of biomarkers useful for diagnosis and treatment. We also encourage reviews including meta-analytic approaches.
Given the acute need of identifying useful biomarkers associated to diagnosis and treatment in neurodevelopmental diseases combined with the explosive growth of “omics” data availability, this is the right time to exploit bioinformatics/systems biology approaches for biomarkers discovery in psychiatry.
Keywords: Genomics, Metabolomics, Pharmacogenomics, Biomarkers, Neurodevelopmental disorders
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
