INVITED VIEWPOINT What future for neuroendocrinology in psychiatry?

What a long way since 1908, when Laignel Lavastine laid out the first concepts of endocrinological psychiatry in Dijon at a psychiatric congress entitled ‘‘Des troubles psychiques par perturbations des glandes à sécrétion interne’’ (mental disorders due to disturbances of endocrine glands). During the last third of the 20th century, the interest of psychiatrists and researchers shifted gradually from the study of mental disorders associated with endocrine diseases (such as Graves’ disease, Cushing’s syndrome, Addison’s disease), toward the study of endocrine symptoms as part of psychiatric disorders. This approach in turn generated enthusiasm followed by skepticism. Initial enthusiasm in the 1970s—1980s, as it seemed that paraclinical tests would become available to validate nosography, and that specific markers would be paired with clinical entities. A typical example is the dexamethasone suppression test (DST) for melancholia (Carroll et al., 1981). Skepticism followed, because it was quickly realized that it was impossible to validate a biomarker as long Psychoneuroendocrinology (2013) 38, 1213—1219