Tag: NIMH

Insel says he has the answer—the same emphasis on neuroscience and genetics, which he admits led to no improvements under his leadership at NIMH.

Last year, over twenty major institutions worldwide jointly committed to posting the results of all their clinical trials within a 12 month time frame. NIMH’s frequent failure to do so is especially concerning because evidence distortion appears to be remarkably widespread in journal articles discussing trials of psychiatric drugs.

In this piece for The Atlantic, David Dobbs delves into the life of former NIMH director Thomas Insel, his critiques of research within the field of...

From Wired: Thomas Insel, neuroscientist and former head of the National Institutes of Mental Health, is leaving his role at the Google-spawned health science company...

In this message from the Director of the NIMH, Dr. Joshua Gordon announces an increased focus on psychosocial interventions for treating mental health conditions. "From...

From the National Institute of Mental Health: Dr. Shelli Avenevoli has been named the new deputy director of the NIMH. Article →­

A study published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience proposes a new model for the treatment of adolescents diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD).

The official announcement of the NIMH's new director proudly proclaimed he had been studying things such as “the role of the hippocampus, a brain structure known to be important for memory and emotional processes associated with anxiety and depression.” Is there any evidence that anything will come of these theories — and the expenses demanded of such endeavors?

Sarah Kaplan for the Washington Post reports that while “Trump has pledged to cut federal spending he hasn’t offered details on how this will affect funding for scientific research.”

John Markowitz, a clinical psychiatrist and professor, argues that the NIMH’s exclusive focus on neuroscience research is failing patients in The New York Times....

A new analysis of the information that the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) publishes for parents about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) concludes that the children’s experiences and contexts are ignored and that medication is presented, misleadingly, as the only solution supported by research evidence.

In the Pacific Standard, Elena Goory asks: “What does it look like, right now, when the government tries to revolutionize an entire field of...

In his reaction to Dr. Makari’s Opinion piece in the ‘Times, entitled Psychiatry’s Mind-Brain Problem, Dr. Nardo articulates why the legacy of NIMH director Thomas Insel is so dangerous. “He may have kept the researchers from spinning off and following some idiosyncratic path, but he did it by forcing them to follow his own idiosyncratic path.”

In an interview with the New Scientist, former NIMH director Dr. Thomas Insel explained his decision to join Google and move to the private...

Dr. Thomas Insel worked as the director of the NIMH for thirteen years, and now he is moving on to Google where he hopes to help develop technology to monitor our mental health.

Yesterday, the New York Times reported that schizophrenia patients in an experimental treatment program (RAISE) who experienced better outcomes had been on lower doses of antipsychotics than normal. However, the article published in the American Journal of Psychiatry on Tuesday did not divulge any data on the varying antipsychotic drug doses in the different study groups.

Results of a large government-funded study call into question current drug heavy approaches to treating people diagnosed with schizophrenia. The study, which the New York Times called “by far the most rigorous trial to date conducted in the United States,” found that patients who received smaller doses of antipsychotic drugs with individual talk therapy, family training, and support for employment and education had a greater reduction in symptoms as well as increases in quality of life, and participation in work and school than those receiving the current standard of care.

You never know what you’re going to accomplish when you start something. Who could have predicted that Tom Insel and NIMH would throw the APA and the DSM under the bus? My guess is that two factors played a big part in NIMH’s decision. First, the unceasing barrage of criticism directed at the DSM – its lack of construct validity; its declining inter-rater reliability – had damaged its credibility beyond repair. On top of that, thirty years of DSM-based research had produced no biomarkers.

Tomorrow, May 18, the American Psychiatric Association kicks off its 166th annual conference. That same day, its new DSM-5 will be officially published. Given the occurrences of the past couple of weeks, which I’ll review briefly below, some members of the APA might wish tomorrow’s events would go unnoticed. But they won’t.

If, a little over three years ago, you asked me who I was, my one and only answer would have been, “Bipolar.”  It was the word that defined me, that explained my emotions and behaviors, that gave me answers to the questions, Why am I so unhappy?  Why do I want to die every day?  Why is it so hard to get out of bed in the morning, to shower and brush my teeth and leave the house and interact with the world?  Why do I find it impossible to keep a job, a relationship, a responsibility?  Why do I never feel OK?

I've been hearing about translational medicine for a long time and wondering what it was. For the most part, it's a huge subsidy to...