Personalized Medicine is the individualization of diagnosis and treatment based upon a patient's profile of identified neurobiological markers. This comprehensive and objective medical process is aimed at maximizing the accuracy and efficiency of diagnosis and the safety and efficacy of treatment.

This new approach in medicine has been recently called upon by the United States Food and Drug Administration (Woodcock, 2005) and the development of the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders V (DSM-V; Kupfer et al., 2002; Nigg et al., 2005; Peled, 2006; Rich et al., 2007; Sunderland et al., 2006). David Kupfer, chairperson and presentor at the American Psychiatric Association 155th Annual Meeting, noted that presentations contained a consistent plea for neurobiology to play a more prominent role in the next version of DSM.

David Kupfer (2002) notes that greatest promise for the field lies in the combined use of the various methods. "There are a variety of benefits that can be gained by the integrated use of different modalities, many of which are beginning to be explored. First, methods can be used to complement one another. For example, numerous efforts are under way to combine fMRI with ERP and/or MEG, using fMRI (sometimes together with MEG) to provide spatial information that can constrain efforts to conduct source localization of ERP measurement."

Brain Profiling offers the integration of advanced measures from different modalities including MRI, EEG, ERP, social cognitive (emotion) and general cognitive (neuropsychological), and autonomic measures. Through the use of large standardized clinical and normal databases and the integration of these measures we can provide a more accurate assessment of a patient's condition, and provide data which can be used to personalize treatment (Gordon, 2000, 2003; Gordon et al., 2003, 2005; Hermens et al., 2006; Johnstone et al., 2005; Rowe et al., 2007; Rowe & Hermens, 2006).

References

Gordon, E (2000). Integrative neuroscience: The big picture. E.Gordon (Ed.), Integrative neuroscience: Bringing together biological, psychological and clinical models of the human brain. Harwood Academic Publishers, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, pp. 1-28.

Gordon, E (2003). Integrative neuroscience. Neuropsychopharmacology , 28, Suppl-8.

Gordon, E, Cooper, N, Rennie, C, Hermens, D, and Williams, LM (2003). Integrative neuroscience: the role of a standardised database. Australasian Psychiatry , 11 (2), 156-163.

Gordon, E, Cooper, N, Rennie, C, Hermens, D, and Williams, LM (2005). Integrative neuroscience: the role of a standardized database. Clinical EEG & Neuroscience: Official Journal of the EEG & Clinical Neuroscience Society (ENCS) , 36 (2), 64-75.

Hermens, DF, Rowe, DL, Gordon, E, and Williams, LM (2006). Integrative neuroscience approach to predict ADHD stimulant response. Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics , 6 (5), 753-763.

Johnstone, J, Gunkelman, J, and Lunt, J (2005). Clinical database development: characterization of EEG phenotypes. Clinical EEG & Neuroscience , 36 (2), 99-107

Kupfer, DJ, First, MB, and Regier, DA (2002). A research agenda for DSM-V. American Psychiatric Association, Washington, D.C..

Nigg, JT, Willcutt, EG, Doyle, AE, and Sonuga-Barke, EJS (2005). Causal Heterogeneity in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Do We Need Neuropsychologically Impaired Subtypes? Biological Psychiatry , 57 (11), 1224-1230.

Peled, A (2006). Brain profiling and clinical-neuroscience. Medical Hypotheses , 67 (4), 941-946.

Rich, BA, Schmajuk, M, Perez-Edgar, KE, Fox, NA, Pine, DS, and Leibenluft, E (2007). Different Psychophysiological and Behavioral Responses Elicited by Frustration in Pediatric Bipolar Disorder and Severe Mood Dysregulation. American Journal of Psychiatry , 164 (2), 309-317.

Rowe, DL, Cooper, NJ, Liddell, BJ, Clark, CR, and Williams, LM (2007). Brain Structure and Brain Function Correlates of General and Social Cognition. Journal of Integrative Neuroscience , in press.

Rowe, DL and Hermens, DF (2006). Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: neurophysiology, information processing, arousal and drug development. Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics , 6 (11), 1721-1734.

Sunderland, T, Hampel, H, Takeda, M, Putnam, KT, and Cohen, RM (2006). Biomarkers in the Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease: Are We Ready? Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and Neurology , 19 (3), 172-179.

Woodcock, J (2005). Pharmacogenetics: on the road to 'personalized medicine'. FDA Consumer , 39 (6), 44-Dec.