>>13791365>if someone’s neurology doesn’t fit the pattern then they’ve been misdiagnosed and if an illness doesn’t have a detectable pattern then it doesn’t existIt depends. Keep in mind that there's simply a tremendous amount of individual variation in brain architecture, both at the macro scale and at the micro scale. So whether a particular feature is pathological or not doesn't simply depend on its presence, but also on how its presence plays out in behavior.
In addition, the only features that are accessible to us through brain scans are macroscopic, so we are blind to any microstructural abnormalities that may exist in a person who's been diagnosed with a particular disorder. An example of this is Alzheimer's: preliminary diagnosis happens based on behavioral criteria such as memory function, because only a post-mortem examination can give definitive evidence of the presence of neurofibrillary tangles, which are a key determinant of AD. MRI / CT / PET scans cannot see them. But that doesn't mean they aren't present, or that the disorder doesn't exist.
>It’s annoying that psychology is done as finding patterns for an illness rather than the other way around.In essence I agree - I also think it would ultimately be better to define disorders based on specific pathogenic processes instead of behavioral symptomatology. Mostly because it'll enable more targeted treatment, and guard against over-diagnosis. Fortunately the field has been moving in this direction for some time. However, I think we're not quite there yet for a lot of these disorders, primarily because we still lack a complete charting of the myriad pathologies that underlie them, but also because we lack the tools to pinpoint those we are aware of in the alive brain.
