I have spent a good part of my academic career trying to understand the nature and consequences of individual differences. It has always been hoped that when we had a better understanding of these differences, we would be able to craft better educational and therapeutic interventions. This article from The New York Times suggests there may be progress on these lines:
“Although the holy grail of personalized therapy — be it with psychotropic drugs or psychotherapy — has proved elusive, we’ve learned a lot recently about individual factors that might predict a better response to one type of treatment over another.
Dr. Helen Mayberg, a professor of psychiatry at Emory University, recently published a study in JAMA Psychiatry that identified a potential biomarker in the brain that could predict whether a depressed patient would respond better to psychotherapy or antidepressant medication.”
The original paper can be found here.
peakmemory 
Leave a Reply