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Thomas R. Insel, MD; Remi Quirion, PhD, FRSC, CQ

JAMA. 2005;294:2221-2224.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Genomics and neuroscience, 2 areas of science fundamental to psychiatry, have undergone revolutionary changes in the past 20 years. Yet methods of diagnosis and treatment for patients with mental disorders have remained relatively unchanged. Indeed, during the same time, the public health burden of mental disorders has grown alarmingly. Mental disorders are now among the largest sources of medical disability worldwide¹ and, like AIDS and cancer, they are urgent and deadly.^2-3

In this commentary, we argue that psychiatry’s impact on public health will require that mental disorders be understood and treated as brain disorders. In the past, mental disorders were defined by the absence of a so-called organic lesion. Mental disorders became neurological disorders at the moment a lesion was found. With the advent of functional neuroimaging, patterns of regional brain activity associated with normal and pathological mental experience can be . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Mental Disorders as Complex Genetic Disorders

Author Affiliations: National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md (Dr Insel), and Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Douglas Hospital, Montreal, Quebec (Dr Quirion).