Cause is not everything in mental illness

摘要

The past week has been big for mental illness. As reported last week in this journal, psychiatric researchers have uncovered a spread of genetic clues to schizophrenia, potentially shedding some biochemical light on how this dreadful disease develops. At the same time, a leading US centre for research on mental-health disorders announced a record US$650-million donation from philanthropist Ted Stanley to boost that work (see Nature 511,393; 2014). Good news all round. And more could yet follow: genetic understanding of psychiatric disorders, together with more research on the unusual ebb and flow of circuits in the brain, promise a revolution. Researchers of brain disorders compare the current state of their science to knowledge of cancer a decade or so ago, before molecular approaches could stratify patients and select specific treatments.