Contribution of neuroimaging in the diagnosis of brain disorders: Recent findings and future applications

Brain disorders including neurological and psychiatric disorders have become a major global public health issue due to their high prevalence and burden. However, elucidating ultimate causes and improving strategies for diagnosis and treatment of these disorders remain challenging due to limited accessibility to living human brain. In addition, there has been a great need for robust biomarkers for them at a very early stage. Neuroimaging technologies have demonstrated the potential in investigating the pathophysiology and developing the biomarkers. The current review discusses the potential diagnostic applications of neuroimaging in brain disorders. We summarized major findings in recent neuroimaging meta-analyses, which could be used as future biomarkers, in Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, central nervous system inflammation, depression, and schizophrenia. New possibilities of novel imaging techniques were also demonstrated. Finally, future directions for the imaging-based diagnosis were suggested. In spite of promising results from preliminary studies and rapid technological advances, further studies on the reliability and validity of potential imaging biomarkers in larger patient populations and the development of new guidelines for the clinical applications would be required.