Post by Jeesung Ahn, Ph.D.

Can we truly personalize depression care? I enjoyed exploring this question with fellow researchers at ADAA 2026 in Chicago! I was honored to receive an Early Career Membership Award and share our team’s work on the “cognitive biotype” in depression, a subgroup of patients who often don’t respond well to standard antidepressants and show specific patterns of cognitive impairment and neural circuit dysfunction. The question we’re asking at the Stanford Center for Precision Mental Health (PMH) is whether we can identify these patients before treatment decisions are made, using cognitive tests and neuroimaging in a scalable way. We think the answer is yes, and we're now testing this in ACE-D, a multi-site randomized trial examining whether patients prospectively identified as the cognitive biotype respond better to a targeted medication (guanfacine) than to a standard SSRI. Feeling very grateful for my colleagues, mentors, and collaborators, and for the opportunity to share our work! #PrecisionMentalHealth #Depression #Neuroimaging #Biotype #PersonalizedTreatmentMatching #ADAA2026