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December 16, 2020

Toward a Paradigm for Youth Mental Health

Author Affiliations
  • 1Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany
  • 2Institute for Neuroscience and Psychology, Glasgow University, Scotland, United Kingdom
  • 3Orygen, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  • 4Centre for Youth Mental Health, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
JAMA Psychiatry. 2021;78(5):473-474. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2020.3905

“Mental disorders are chronic diseases of the young.”

Thomas R. Insel, MD, and Wayne S. Fenton, MD1

The current paradigm for understanding and treating mental disorders is in crisis. The limited availability of existing treatments is exacerbated by their lack of efficacy for some of the most disabling features of major syndromes, such as impairments in cognitive and functional domains. Despite the promises of genetics and translational neuroscience, causal mechanisms of major syndromes remain to be clearly identified. As a result, development of novel pharmacological therapies has also largely stalled.

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