Insel: 'Different Kind of Science' Poised to Transform Psychiatry

From the July 4th edition of Psychiatric News:

By Mark Moran

Understanding genomic variation and how it affects normal or abnormal development of brain circuits in different ways at different points in time will help push psychiatric diagnosis and treatment into the 21st century.

Psychiatry is still awaiting the "disruptive innovations" in scientific research that have helped to reconceptualize disease in other areas of medicine, said Thomas Insel, M.D., director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), at APA's 2008 annual meeting in Washington, D.C., in May.

The study of genomic variation and its role in leading to changes in complex brain circuitry, recognition of the longitudinal and developmental nature of disorders, and the discovery of biomarkers linked to a more precise understanding of the pathophysiology of disease are the tools of a 21st-century science promising to transform the treatment of mental illness.

Insel said those same tools have been applied in other areas of medicine to reconceptualize the nature of disease and to reduce mortality dramatically for people with such disorders as cardiovascular disease and cancer.

In contrast, the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness, he said, have been stuck in a 20th-century model.

To read the entire article, click here.

NIMH Director Thomas Insel, M.D.: "Genes code for proteins that play out in particular brain areas at particular times to change the way brain circuitry develops. It's all about variation and how it plays out at each of these levels."

Photo credit: Mark Moran