A mental disorder is an impairment of the mind disrupting normal thinking, feeling, mood, behavior, or social interactions, and accompanied by significant distress or dysfunction. The causes of mental disorders are very complex and vary depending on the particular disorder and the individual. Although the causes of most mental disorders are not fully understood, researchers have identified a variety of biological, psychological, and environmental factors that can contribute to the development or progression of mental disorders. Most mental disorders result in a combination of several different factors rather than just a single factor.
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH, in turn, is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research.
Neuropsychiatry is a branch of medicine that deals with psychiatry as it relates to neurology, in an effort to understand and attribute behavior to the interaction of neurobiology and social psychology factors. Within neuropsychiatry, the mind is considered "as an emergent property of the brain", whereas other behavioral and neurological specialties might consider the two as separate entities. Those disciplines are typically practiced separately.
The Meyerhoff Scholars Program is a program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) designed to prepare minority students for academic careers in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines. The program has served as a model for developing and supporting minority students pursuing academic careers.
Carl Curt Pfeiffer was a physician and biochemist who researched schizophrenia, allergies and other diseases. He was Chair of the Pharmacology Department at Emory University and considered himself a founder of what two-time Nobel prize winner, [Pauling, PhD.], named orthomolecular psychiatry and published in the Journal Science. 1968 Apr 19;160(3825):265-71.
Nancy Coover Andreasen is an American neuroscientist and neuropsychiatrist. She currently holds the Andrew H. Woods Chair of Psychiatry at the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa.
Dan Joseph Stein is a South African psychiatrist who is a professor and Chair of the Dept of Psychiatry and Mental Health at the University of Cape Town, and Director of the South African MRC Unit on Risk & Resilience in Mental Disorders. Stein was the Director of UCT's early Brain and Behaviour Initiative, and was the inaugural Scientific Director of UCT's later Neuroscience Institute. He has also been a visiting professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in the United States, and at Aarhus University in Denmark.
The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that funds mental health research. It was originally called the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia & Depression, or NARSAD. It received its nonprofit ruling in 1981.
Brief psychotic disorder—according to the classifications of mental disorders DSM-IV-TR and DSM-5—is a psychotic condition involving the sudden onset of at least one psychotic symptom lasting 1 day to 1 month, often accompanied by emotional turmoil. Remission of all symptoms is complete with patients returning to the previous level of functioning. It may follow a period of extreme stress including the loss of a loved one. Most patients with this condition under DSM-5 would be classified as having acute and transient psychotic disorders under ICD-10. Prior to DSM-IV, this condition was called "brief reactive psychosis." This condition may or may not be recurrent, and it should not be caused by another condition.
William T. Carpenter is an American psychiatrist, a pioneer in the fields of psychiatry and pharmacology who served as an expert witness in the John W. Hinckley trial for the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan. His primary professional interest is in severe mental illness, especially schizophrenia, to the prevention and treatment of which he has made significant contributions in psychopathology, assessment methodology, testing of new treatments, and research ethics.
Daniel R. Weinberger is a professor of psychiatry, neurology and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University and Director and CEO of the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, which opened in 2011.
The Lieber Institute for Brain Development (LIBD) is a nonprofit research center located in Baltimore, Maryland, that studies brain development issues such as schizophrenia and autism. The cause of most neuropsychiatric disorders remains unknown and current therapies such as antipsychotics and antidepressants treat symptoms rather than the underlying illness. Lieber is working to unravel the biological basis of these brain disorders and is developing therapies to treat or prevent their development.
Ming Tso Tsuang is an American psychiatrist and Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego. He is considered a pioneering researcher in the genetic epidemiology of schizophrenia and other severe mental disorders. Tsuang has authored and co-authored more than 600 publications and serves as founding and senior editor of the American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B.
Amy F.T. Arnsten is an American neuroscientist. She is the Albert E. Kent Professor of Neuroscience and Professor of Psychology as well as a member of the Kavli Institute of Neuroscience at Yale University.
Joseph Thomas Coyle Jr. is an American psychiatrist and neuroscientist. He is the Eben S. Draper Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Harvard Medical School.
Sherilynn Black is an American neuroscientist, the Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement, as well as an assistant professor of the practice of medical education at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Black's research focuses on social neuroscience and developing interventions to promote diversity in academia. Black has been widely recognized for her commitment to faculty development and advancement and holds national appointments with the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the National Institutes of Health, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the American Association of Medical Colleges, The Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and the Society for Neuroscience.
Crystal C. Watkins Johansson is an American neuroscientist and psychiatrist and associate professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as well as the director of the Sheppard Pratt Memory Clinic in Neuropsychiatry in Baltimore, Maryland. Johansson was the first Black female Meyerhoff Scholar to obtain an MD/PhD from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. During her MD/PhD she developed a novel treatment for gastrointestinal in patients with diabetes that led to a patent for a pharmacological compound in 2000. Johansson is a practicing neuropsychiatrist with a focus on geriatric psychiatry and she conducts brain imaging research as well as research on cancer in African American women.
Tanzeem Khalid Choudhury is the Roger and Joelle Burnell Professor in Integrated Health and Technology at Cornell Tech. Her research work is primarily in the area of mHealth.
Karen Faith Berman is an American psychiatrist and physician-scientist who is a senior investigator and chief of the section on integrative neuroimaging, the psychosis and cognitive studies section, and the clinical and translational neuroscience branch of the National Institute of Mental Health's division of intramural research.
Carrie Elyse Bearden is an American psychologist and academic. She is a professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, and Director of the UCLA Center for the Assessment and Prevention of Prodromal States, a clinical research program for youth at high risk for psychotic disorders. She is most known for her research taking a ‘genetics first’ approach to study brain mechanisms underlying the development of serious mental illness. Her work has identified biological convergence between genetically and clinically defined high-risk populations.
