Psychiatry as a clinical neuroscience discipline

Abstract

One of the fundamental insights emerging from contemporary neuroscience is that mental illnesses are brain disorders. In contrast to classic neurological illnesses that involve discrete brain lesions, mental disorders need to be addressed as disorders of distributed brain systems with symptoms forged by developmental and social experiences. While genomics will be important for revealing risk, and cellular neuroscience should provide targets for novel treatments for these disorders, it is most likely that the tools of systems neuroscience will yield the biomarkers needed to revolutionize psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. This essay considers the discoveries that will be necessary over the next two decades to translate the promise of modern neuroscience into strategies for prevention and cures of mental disorders. To deliver on this spectacular new potential, clinical neuroscience must be integrated into the discipline of psychiatry, thereby transforming current psychiatric training, tools, and practices.

Figure 1. A Vision for Mental Health Research

Pathophysiologic descriptions of mental disorders will permit diagnoses validated by biological measures and treatments aimed at core pathology. Care will become personalized via an understanding of individual risk, allowing for strategic approaches to prevention and treatment. These ambitious goals require application of genomics and proteomics to mental disorders.