Missoula, Montana — A more targeted approach to mental health care may be on the way as some Montanans take part in clinical trials exploring new treatments for mental illness.
“Right now, prescribing treatment is trial and error because all we can tell patients is that they have depression,” said Dr. Amit Etkin, founder and CEO of Alto Neuroscience.
Etkin, a former professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, heads a California-based biotechnology company called Alto Neurosciences’ Salvation Research Initiative, which aims to better target treatments for mental illness.
Current treatments, Etkin said, rely on broad diagnoses of illnesses like depression and PTSD that lack specificity and lump together many biological features.
“Then the medications and other treatments that we have in place for them tend to be less effective, and we don’t know who they actually work for,” Etkin told NBC Montana.
Alto is currently conducting FDA trials of four drugs aimed at more effectively treating major depressive disorder and schizophrenia.
The current hypothesis is that these drugs may be useful for individuals with certain biomarkers.
The trial’s decentralized approach means people in places like Montana that don’t have in-person testing sites can participate. Participants can take biomarker tests at home using short computer-based tests and electroencephalography, which measures brain activity.
The effort enrolled its first participants from Montana in August 2022. As of late June, the number of Montanans enrolled in the study exceeded 100.
Alt attributes the growth to ongoing outreach, unmet need and a partnership with the Montana chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
“Bringing the research here shortens the time it takes to bring actual care to Montana,” said Matt Kunz, NAMI Montana executive director.
Prior to Alto, NAMI Montana had been trying to bring precision mental health care research surveys to Montana for more than a decade, Kunz told NBC Montana.
In addition to speeding up care, Kunz said a study without Montanans won’t reflect how care is delivered in Big Sky Country, which faces challenges including a shortage of health care workers.
If you are interested in taking part in this ongoing study, you can complete an online survey.
