Assessment of Brain Monoaminergic Signaling Through Mathematical Modeling of Skin Conductance Response

The majority of mental disorders (schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, mood and anxiety disorders) have become treatable for the last several decades mostly due to development of the agents which modulate function of the brain dopaminergic, noradrenergic, and serotonergic system. The art of pharmacological healing in psychiatry consists actually in a great part in choice of the monoaminergic agent (i.e. antipsychotic or antidepressant) or their combinations which will modify the brainstem monoaminergic systems in an appropriate way. In other words, a daily problem in psychiatric practice could be realized as the task of estimation of the actual “neurochemical status” of the patient mostly in respect to the three brainstem monoamines. In clinical setting the task is still accomplished relying on the clinical picture and identifying the dominant symptoms that the patient manifests (e.g. Nutt, 2008; Nutt et al., 2007).