HOLLYWOOD, FLA. – Imagine if you’d gone to medical school with the intention of becoming a psychiatrist, only to be told that part of your core curriculum would include a course on biomaterials engineering or nanoscience.
If all goes according to the current plan of President Barack Obama’s BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies), announced in April 2013, these disciplines, and many other so-called nontraditional medical sciences, will be foundational to understanding the human mind and brain.
Courtesy NIMH
Dr. Thomas Insel
It’s a development welcomed by the director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Thomas Insel, who says that neuropsychiatry lacks the necessary tools to identify, treat, and prevent mental and neurologic illnesses.
We spoke with Dr. Insel after the plenary session of this year’s American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology annual meeting, formerly known as the New Clinical Drug Evaluation Unit meeting. We discussed how the BRAIN Initiative could change practice for psychiatrists and other mental health professionals. This is part I of that conversation.
wmcknight@frontlinemedicalnews.com
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