Currently doctors diagnose a psychiatric disorder based on the patient’s symptoms. The underlying neurobiology isn’t usually considered, because we lack the data to really use it.
In the future, endophenotypes might let us detect who is susceptible to psychiatric illness before clinical symptoms develop. That means we could try to combat, or at least appease, the symptoms of the disorder before they start. And knowing how endophenotypes contribute to these disorders could lead to precision medicine treatments.
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