Research advances in metabolomics for the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders

As a core technology to accurately capture the dynamic changes of the body’s metabolism, metabolomics can systematically screen disease-related biomarkers through common detection methods and targeted/non-targeted analysis strategies. It provides an objective basis for the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness, and effectively addresses the subjective limitations of traditional diagnosis relying on clinical symptom assessment. This technology has yielded clear application results in the field of mental illness. At the level of pathogenesis, metabolomics research reveals the core pathological mechanisms such as oxidative stress and intestinal-brain axis imbalance. At the level of auxiliary diagnosis, specific metabolic markers that can distinguish different mental disorders were screened out, and the markers showed stage-specificity of the disease, which can assist in the staging of the disease and the detection of curative effect. At the level of treatment guidance, metabolomics research provides mechanistic support for gut microbiota regulatory interventions (such as probiotics supplementation) and evaluates therapeutic efficacy by monitoring metabolic changes pre- and post-treatment to guide personalized regimens. The current research has outstanding problems such as insufficient multi-center verification of markers and limited clinical transformation. In the future, it will be necessary to promote the breakthrough development of metabolomics in the field of mental illness and improve the precision medical system through technical optimization and large-scale clinical cohort studies.