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Drug research

A plan for mental illness

Nature volume 483, page 269 (2012)Cite this article

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A Correction to this article was published on 02 May 2012

This article has been updated

The Royal Society International Seminar Consortium describes what the next decade of mental-health drug development should look like.

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Change history

  • 29 March 2012

    This article originally omitted to list all 17 co-authors and did not flag up clearly any declared competing financial interests. These errors have now been corrected.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Thomas R. Insel is at the National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.,

    Thomas R. Insel

  2. Barbara J. Sahakian is in the Department of Psychiatry and the MRC/Wellcome Trust Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. bjs1001@cam.ac.uk,

    Barbara J. Sahakian

  3. Valerie Voon is in the Department of Psychiatry and the MRC/Wellcome Trust Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.,

    Valerie Voon

  4. Jeffrey Nye is at Janssen Pharmaceutical of Johnson and Johnson, Titusville, New Jersey, USA.,

    Jeffrey Nye

  5. Verity J. Brown is in the School of Psychology, St Andrews University, St Andrews, UK.,

    Verity J. Brown

  6. Bruce M. Altevogt is at the Institute of Medicine, Forum on Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders, Washington DC, USA.,

    Bruce M. Altevogt

  7. Ed T. Bullmore is at GlaxoSmithKline, Clinical Unit, Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, UK.,

    Ed T. Bullmore

  8. Guy M. Goodwin is in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.,

    Guy M. Goodwin

  9. Robert J. Howard is at the Royal College of Psychiatrists and Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, UK.,

    Robert J. Howard

  10. Department of Psychiatry, David J. Kupfer is in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, USA.,

    David J. Kupfer

  11. Gavin Malloch is at the Medical Research Council, London, UK.,

    Gavin Malloch

  12. Hugh M. Marston is at TPP Global Development, Edinburgh, UK.,

    Hugh M. Marston

  13. Division of Experimental Medicine, David J. Nutt is at the Centre for Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Imperial College London, London, UK.,

    David J. Nutt

  14. Trevor W. Robbins is in the Department of Experimental Psychology and the MRC/Wellcome Trust Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.,

    Trevor W. Robbins

  15. and the Department of Psychiatry, Stephen Stahl is in the Behavioural and Clinical Neurosciences Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, California, USA.,

    Stephen Stahl

  16. Mark D. Tricklebank is at Eli Lilly and Co Ltd, Windlesham, UK.,

    Mark D. Tricklebank

  17. John H. Williams is at the Wellcome Trust, London, UK.,

    John H. Williams

Authors
  1. Thomas R. Insel
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  2. Barbara J. Sahakian
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  3. Valerie Voon
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  4. Jeffrey Nye
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  5. Verity J. Brown
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  6. Bruce M. Altevogt
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  7. Ed T. Bullmore
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  8. Guy M. Goodwin
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  9. Robert J. Howard
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  10. David J. Kupfer
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  11. Gavin Malloch
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  12. Hugh M. Marston
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  13. David J. Nutt
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  14. Trevor W. Robbins
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  15. Stephen Stahl
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  16. Mark D. Tricklebank
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  17. John H. Williams
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Barbara J. Sahakian.

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Competing interests

Barbara J. Sahakian, Verity J. Brown, Trevor Robbins, Guy Goodwin and David Nutt have all received money from consulting for companies.

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Cite this article

Insel, T., Sahakian, B., Voon, V. et al. A plan for mental illness. Nature 483, 269 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/483269a

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Comments

Commenting on this article is now closed.

  1. Sander Heinsalu

    The second sentence illustrates the current overdiagnosis and vague diagnostic criteria of mental illness &#8211 it claims 40% of the population in 30 countries is mentally ill. The text later includes substance abuse with mental illness, but one would probably have to add all smokers, coffee and alcohol drinkers into the pool to reach 40%.
    Treatment of real mental illness might be improved by not spreading resources over 40% of the population.

  2. Charles Packer

    As somebody who experienced acute schizophrenia that went away eventually without drug or psychiatric intervention, I recognize cluelessness with respect to mental illness when I see it. And this article is most certainly an instance of same. Research in this area involves way too many subtleties to be entrusted entirely to a "cadre of clinical neuroscientists."

  3. Norman Morgan

    I don't know how much I can trust this articles when it are written by people who consulted and are still consulting ddrug making companies.

    Gatit:web

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