Posts by Former NIMH Director Thomas Insel about Basic Research

Dr. Insel discusses how the Precision Medicine Initiative will create a new kind of patient-driven research, which is similar to how innovative companies have created a new share economy based on trust.

Dr. Insel talks about the importance of incorporating neuroscience in the training of psychiatric residents and a new initiative to do that. The clinician of 2025 will need to know about the science of the brain.

March 16-22 is Brain Awareness Week, an opportunity to celebrate neuroscience. Dr. Insel talks about some exciting areas of research underway on the brain.

Dr. Insel lauds University of Washington psychiatrist and researchers Wayne Katon and the collaborative care approach for depression he helped develop.

We tend to assume that the secrets to understanding individual differences in resilience to stress must be sought in the brain. Now, findings in mice suggest that the peripheral immune system might play a pivotal role.

In his latest blog, Dr. Insel discusses precision medicine, which is the new hot topic in research and what it means for mental health.

Dr. Insel discusses the idea that chance may have as much to do with the development of mental illness as do genetic and environmental factors.

Dr. Insel offers an overview of his top ten mental health stories for 2014.

Drug testing in mice has been a poor guide to effectiveness in humans; Dr. Insel talks about the need for research approaches that can more reliably guide medication development.

In his blog, Dr. Insel talks about the reasons for problems with reproducibility in research, among them flawed use of statistical analysis.

Dr. Insel discusses the importance of data sharing within the scientific community and highlights how NIMH is encouraging this process.

Neurotechnologies are making it possible to finely tune brain circuitry to manipulate memory.

Dr. Insel describes new scientific findings on autism, including new CDC prevalence data, being reported just as Autism Awareness Month begins.

Dr. Insel reviews his “top ten” selections for 2013, including research advances and historic policy changes affecting mental health care.

Dr. Insel recaps the annual Partners for Cure (P4C) meeting, where the theme is to speed the delivery of new cures through innovative research models.

The discovery that mutations unique to an individual are common in the brain changes, and complicates, the search for genes underlying brain disorders.

With more than 100 common gene variants recently implicated in schizophrenia and autism, the problem now is to pinpoint how they might change brain circuits. A promising new tool is a sort of budding brain in a dish. What’s amazing – eclipsing earlier “disease-in-a-dish” discoveries – is that, over weeks and months, differentiating cells in these “organoids” organize themselves according to the architecture that we see in a functioning human brain.

In his blog, Dr. Insel discusses the challenge of assessing the quality of scientific research in a new era of open access publishing.

Dr. Insel describes how insights from research into why we do not retain memories from the first four years of life may help shed light on many aspects of memory.

Dr. Insel reports in his blog about intriguing findings published this summer on the genes and disruptions in brain circuitry involved in schizophrenia.

Dr. Insel explains the nuances of the term, “serious mental illness.”

Dr. Insel talks about the value of data sharing and collaboration to promote innovation and scientific discovery.

Dr. Insel talks about how a powerful new brain imaging technique will make it possible for scientists to investigate the brain in in an entirely new way, offering a preview of what scientists hope to achieve with tools developed as a result of the new BRAIN initiative.

Dr. Insel’s blog makes the link between neuroscience and the national conversation on mental illness and gun violence; neuroscience research is the key to our being able to identify psychosis risk early and preempt the development of serious mental illness.

In a blog about Brain Awareness Month, NIMH Director Thomas Insel talks about the mysteries that remain to be solved about how the brain works.

NIMH’s director talks about the need for research that explores the frontiers of science and funding efforts to encourage innovative research.

In looking back at ten years as NIMH director, Dr. Insel talks about the importance of rigorous science as the source of new, sometimes surprising, knowledge and ultimately, more effective means of prevention and treatment for mental illness.

Numerous provocative advances in neuroscience were reported during the summer of 2012.

Dr. Insel discusses the dynamics of data sharing in research.

The RDoC project is an experimental approach to classification of mental disorders that will serve as a framework for ongoing research.

Dr. Insel discusses the emergence of “big data” and how open sharing of data could impact mental health research.

Dr. Insel talks about how basic research can lead to potential treatments.

Dr. Insel responds to discussion from the National Advisory Mental Health Council concerning the need to balance research funding for basic science and mental health services.

Dr. Insel shares NIMH’s Top 10 Research Advances for 2011.

Dr. Insel discusses the state of psychiatric research and development (R&D) in the public and private sectors

Dr. Insel reflects on an exciting neuroscience conference where an increasing interest in neuropsychiatric disorders was evident.

Dr. Insel’s tour to Australia, Singapore, China and Japan reveal heavy investments in science and science education, indicating the time is ripe for collaboration.

Research on neural circuits is changing how mental illnesses are understood and may ultimately lead to new ways to treat brain disorders early enough to prevent symptoms.

An emerging research technology using Induced pluripotent stem cells holds promise as a window into the developing brain in mental illness.

Windows to completely new areas of research have been opened recently by research efforts in basic science. These reports force us to consider factors that have not previously been thought to have any role in mental health or illness.

10 breakthroughs and events of 2010 which are changing the way we approach mental disorders.

This blog outlines recent progress in schizophrenia research, citing a special issue of the journal Nature focusing on schizophrenia.

Increasing evidence linking strep infection to OCD in children suggests that microbiomics may prove an important research area for understanding and treating mental disorders.

NIMH recognizes the first seven recipients of its BRAINS awards.

NIMH has always and will continue to support cutting edge basic science research. Understanding normal functioning of brain-behavior relationships is critical to providing insight into abnormal brain-behavior relationships. To build a translational bridge we will need a very strong foundation in basic science. This foundation will need to be multidisciplinary and cut across species and levels of analysis.