New Study Shows The Importance Of Developing New Mental Health Therapies

New Study Shows The Importance Of Developing New Mental Health Therapies

In a new article published in the journal Nature, leading scientists from around the world are encouraging the start of new mental health medication studies. They say that the current lack of medication for disorders such as depression, Alzheimer’s or schizophrenia should be surpassed.

The conclusion of the Royal Society meeting regarding the pharmacological problem of mental health medication was that a new approach is needed. Gathered scientists said that there is need for new effective treatments. This meeting has led doctor Thomas Insel, the director of the NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) and professor Barbara Sahakian from the Cambridge Clinical Neuroscience Institute to publish this new comment article.

Scientists say that almost 40 percent of the entire population suffers from some sort of mental health disorders. These disorders include anything from dementia, anxiety, depression to schizophrenia or even Alzheimer’s disease. The also note that there is a lack of research targeting the development of new medication in this domain.

Professor Barbara Sahakian believes she knows what the problem is, saying that most of the pharmaceutical companies have decided to draw back because of financial pressure or because of the difficulty to create new medication based on current research. The small number of pharmaceutical companies which have remained in the mental health drugs domain are still struggling with the lack of funds.

Mental health

Both professor Sahakian and doctor Insel suggest that the approach towards finding new mental health drugs should target genetics. They point out that medication targeting genetics has had a major impact on treating different other disorders. They have also proposed that an investigation of abandoned composites should be conducted by academicians.

“We need to reassess how we identify and validate new drugs, and should consider open access drug development which involves both industry and academia”, added professor Barbara Sahakian.

Earlier studies show that almost 75 percent of mental health disorders affect people under the age of 24. These results make scientists advocate the development of preventive therapy.

Even though some of the newly advocated treatment would be based on medication only, researchers believe new therapies that integrate drugs and a psychosocial approach should be studied as well. A good example would be the therapy used to help autistic children to socially interact with others, through the use of video games.