Proposed by the EPA Section on Neuroimaging and Epidemiology and Social Psychiatry -Refining our understanding of developmental trajectories of mental disorders will allow us to identify early those patients most likely to develop persistence impairment in mental health as well as those patients which will benefit most from treatment. Because of the limited viability of treating all cases, it is particularly important to find out individual determinants predisposing to worst outcome or to a better response to treatment. The key role of social and environmental risk factors, within a gene-environment interplay framework, in precipitating and maintaining specific trajectories in mental disorders will be pointed out in different representative samples. In the same way, alterations in neurobiology and neuroimaging biomarkers which have been associated to developmental patterns leading to different mental health outcome will be critically revised in the light of recent evidence-based results.