<p>Recently, <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.jproteome.5b00434" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this paper</a> [1] claiming to be able to distinguish bipolar disorder from major depressive disorder via a urine sample has come to my attention.</p>

<p>Despite reading the paper, I'm unable to understand how they discovered this bio-marker in the first place. What is the general procedure for identifying and verifying bio-markers in the domain of clinical psychology?</p>

<p>[1] "Divergent Urinary Metabolic Phenotypes between Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar Disorder Identified by a Combined GC–MS and NMR Spectroscopic Metabonomic Approach" by Chen et. al</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-24T09:02:14.493Z
Is this question about the laboratory techniques (like GC-MS and NMR) or about the statistical processing of the measured data? Or were exactly is unclear after reading the paper?
Arsak
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-25T03:12:52.320Z
A reference to a quick overview lab techniques and statistical processing would be ideal.
Seanny123
<neuroscience><measurement><abnormal-psychology><clinical-psychology>
How are psychological bio-markers discovered?
Seanny123
# How are psychological bio-markers discovered?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-08-10)

Recently, [this paper](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.jproteome.5b00434) [1] claiming to be able to distinguish bipolar disorder from major depressive disorder via a urine sample has come to my attention.

Despite reading the paper, I'm unable to understand how they discovered this bio-marker in the first place. What is the general procedure for identifying and verifying bio-markers in the domain of clinical psychology?

[1] "Divergent Urinary Metabolic Phenotypes between Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar Disorder Identified by a Combined GC–MS and NMR Spectroscopic Metabonomic Approach" by Chen et. al

**Tags:** neuroscience, measurement, abnormal-psychology, clinical-psychology

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Is this question about the laboratory techniques (like GC-MS and NMR) or about the statistical processing of the measured data? Or were exactly is unclear after reading the paper?  
> **username_0**: A reference to a quick overview lab techniques and statistical processing would be ideal.  

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## 0 answers

