Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatry. Mar 19, 2025; 15(3): 103321
Published online Mar 19, 2025. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i3.103321
Advancing the diagnosis of major depressive disorder: Integrating neuroimaging and machine learning
Shi-Qi Yin, Ying-Huan Li
Shi-Qi Yin, Ying-Huan Li, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100069, China
Author contributions: Yin SQ contributed to the writing of original draft; Li YH contributed to writing, review and editing of the manuscript; Yin SQ and Li YH designed the overall concept and outline of the manuscript; all of the authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript to be published.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ying-Huan Li, Associate Professor, PhD, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Capital Medical University, No 10 Xitoutiao, You'anmen Outer, Fengtai District, Beijing 100069, China. yinghuan_li@ccmu.edu.cn
Received: November 21, 2024
Revised: December 27, 2024
Accepted: January 8, 2025
Published online: March 19, 2025
Processing time: 102 Days and 19 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Major depressive disorder (MDD), especially in adolescents, poses considerable diagnostic and therapeutic challenges owing to its heterogeneity and the subjective nature of traditional assessment methods. Recent advances in neuroimaging, combined with machine learning (ML) technologies, have led to the development of promising biomarkers and diagnostic tools for MDD. However, these challenges can be addressed through improved data privacy protection measures, advanced encryption and anonymization techniques, greater model transparency, stricter data quality control, and the establishment of clear ethical and legal frameworks. Such efforts are crucial to ensuring the safe, reliable, and compliant application of ML technologies in MDD diagnosis.