Editorials

Mental health care is entering a defining era shaped not only by reflection on past challenges, but also by a growing sense of possibility. As more integrative, context-aware interventions emerge, collaboration across disciplines and sectors is opening new pathways for meaningful progress. The Wellcome Prize for Mental Health Science with Nature aims to accelerate this shift by supporting innovative, scalable interventions with the potential for transformative impact.

Despite obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) being recognized as a global diagnosis with similar rates across countries, there is still a severe lack of trained specialists and high levels of underdiagnosis. This ‘treatment gap,’ together with high treatment resistance in OCD, poses a major challenge to healthcare systems and patients. To overcome barriers to access, there is an urgent need to expand the workforce via specialized training and to provide personalized treatment via digital tools, home-based scalable interventions and alternative treatment modalities.

Autism research is entering a new and pivotal phase, as growing recognition of its biological and clinical heterogeneity presents challenges to previous paradigms and the adequacy of a single diagnostic label. Moving forward, incorporating a neurodiversity lens and embracing individual variability in autism will be a necessary step to improve research, outcomes and lives.

Multiple transdiagnostic frameworks now shape the study of mental health, each illuminating distinct dimensions of psychopathology. Aligning these approaches may be key to developing a more coherent science capable of advancing diagnosis, prevention and intervention.

Behavioral health and mental health are distinct but overlapping concepts. Behavioral health is a systems-oriented framework to address complex mental health conditions through integrated, continuous care. Although it holds promise for improving access and outcomes, its potential remains constrained by fragmented delivery systems and social inequities.

With rising temperatures and widening inequities, researchers, clinicians and policymakers all must confront the consequences of climate change. From the mental health burden associated with humid heat and eco-anxiety to the need for climate-aware clinical training and digital mental health, this issue underscores both the urgency and complexity of adapting health systems to a warming world.

Perinatal mental health conditions remain under-recognized and undertreated, despite their effect on maternal morbidity and mortality and infant and child development. There is an urgent need for increased awareness, challenging stigma, screening and intervention during the perinatal period to improve outcomes for mothers and children.

Digital twins — dynamically updated digital models of an individual’s physical, cognitive and/or emotional state — represent an intriguing and potentially transformative pathway for mental health and brain health. These precision tools promise to deliver insights that are continuous rather than episodic, personalized rather than generic and preventive rather than reactive.

Despite progress, suicide remains one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Changing the narrative means moving beyond stigma and embracing a collective agenda across communities, health systems and policy to implement solutions and to prevent avoidable deaths.

Philosophers and scientists have debated for centuries about how cognition and emotions are produced and the causal roles the body and brain serve. The advent of more sophisticated models of gut–brain axis communication have contributed substantially to the understanding of these key pathways and have identified functional differences associated with depression and anxiety. New work highlights the potential importance of stomach–brain coupling in interpreting interoceptive states in mental health conditions.

Physicians face immense pressure from long hours, systemic healthcare challenges, and the necessity for tough choices in complex medical contexts, often leading to burnout and moral injury. There is an urgent need for systemic healthcare reforms, supportive interventions, and normalizing the idea of help-seeking and being engaged in peer support to promote physician well-being and prevent professional and personal crises.

June marks Pride Month, a time dedicated to recognizing and celebrating the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex and asexual (LGBT+) community. This annual observance honors the pivotal 1969 Stonewall Uprising, a watershed moment in the modern LGBT+ rights movement. Pride is not just a celebration — it is a commitment to resistance, solidarity and progress in the face of uncertainty and adversity, and to building stronger and healthier LGBT+ networks and community.

May marks Mental Health Month in much of the world. The 2025 theme selected by Mental Health America is Turn Awareness into Action. Over the course of the month, campaigns also highlight awareness of mental health for specific groups, including children and older adults, as well as communities and support networks. The theme links the notion of harnessing increased awareness of mental health, including recognition of individual journeys and advances in mental health science, with action through advocacy and policy. This year’s Mental Health Month comes against a backdrop of a steadily increasing prevalence of mental health disorders, rising youth mental health concerns, increased suicide rates, and political and social upheaval — reinforcing the need for the mental health research community to come together to stave off the backslide of progress and to collectively work for sustainable solutions during this crisis.

The term ‘psychosis’ has evolved over time to describe a mental state that is characterized by a disconnect from reality, which can present as a range of symptoms including hallucinations, delusions or disturbed cognition. It is also a symptom for the diagnosis of related disorders. Although there is variability in conceptualizing the construct, identifying risk factors for developing psychosis and early intervention are clear mental health and public health priorities.

Given the early success of treating diabetes and obesity with glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) and their neurobiological effects, interest is mounting in identifying new clinical applications and repurposing of these drugs for the treatment of neuropsychiatric conditions. A growing body of evidence points to the potential of GLP-1RA medications for the treatment of specific mental disorders, which will open the door for continued development and refinement of this class of drugs.

Alongside mental health, the term wellbeing is often included to describe influences that bear on a person’s quality of life, such as social or economic factors, or to a person’s subjective assessment of satisfaction or fulfillment. Competing concepts have proliferated, providing an important area in which increased clarity may help refine mental health research that includes wellbeing.

Machine learning for mental health and psychiatry research has emerged as a powerful set of tools for harnessing increased computing power to analyze relationships in massive and complex datasets. These findings are ultimately poised to help inform research directions, the diagnosis and prediction of psychopathology, and clinical recommendations for treating mental health disorders.

Childhood adversity is a powerful driver of negative physical and mental health outcomes. Although major strides have been made in improving awareness of the potential consequences of adverse childhood experiences, they remain a common and entrenched public health concern linked with other health issues. New research may help to elucidate some of the neurobiological mechanisms associated with the experience of childhood adversity.

The dramatic increase in refugees and people who have been displaced by climate-driven natural disasters, as well as by political unrest and conflict, requires broad rethinking about how aid is provided. In addition to covering basic physical needs, the mental health needs of refugees must also be considered.

Translational science is often characterized metaphorically, as bridging the gaps among multidisciplinary research areas. However, in reality, translational work is often separate or excluded from clinical research. Integrating elements of translational and clinical work into more general mental health research is key to innovation and progress.