This month the American Psychiatric Association will publish the latest edition of its standard guidebook for clinicians, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5 (DSM-5). In somewhat the same way that a field guide to birds helps people distinguish different species with illustrations and descriptions of physical features—a beak’s hooked tip, a blush [...]

PHILADELPHIA—In the summer of 2011 I began working on a feature article about a book that most people have never heard of—the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a reference guide for psychiatrists and clinicians. Most of the DSM‘s pages contain lists of symptoms that characterize different mental disorders (e.g. schizophrenia: delusions, hallucinations, [...]

Cities can be stressful places, and are a far cry from the sparsely populated landscapes in which our prehistoric ancestors evolved. All of that noise, traffic, pollution and crowding has a well-documented impact on our mental health. People who live in cities are more likely to have mood or anxiety disorder (21 percent and 39 [...]

When the body does not properly manage insulin levels, diabetes and other metabolic disorders are familiar outcomes. That hormonal imbalance, however, has also been linked to a higher risk for psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia. And a new study has uncovered a potential pathway by which this metabolic hormone can upset the balance of a [...]

Schizophrenia involves some of the same genetic variations as autism and attention deficit disorders, a new whole-genome study has confirmed. Schizophrenia, which affects about 1.5 percent of the U.S. population, can result in a variety of symptoms that include disrupted thinking, hallucinations, delusions and abnormal speech. The disease is thought to have genetic links but [...]

How many times have you arrived someplace but had no memory of the trip there? Have you ever been sitting in an auditorium daydreaming, not registering what the people on stage are saying or playing? We often spin through our days lost in mental time travel, thinking about something from the past, or future, leaving [...]

In a room tucked next to the reception desk in a colorful lobby of a Park Avenue office tower, kids slide into the core of a white cylinder and practice something kids typically find quite difficult: staying still. Inside the tunnel, a child lies on her back and looks up at a television screen, watching [...]

Part 5 of a 5-part series By Allen Frances* When the third edition of psychiatry’s manual of mental illness, the DSM-III, was published 30 years ago, there was great optimism it would soon be the willing victim of its own success, achieving a kind of planned obsolescence. Surely, the combining of a reasonably reliable system [...]

By Edward Shorter* Part 3 in a series One might liken the latest draft of psychiatry’s new diagnostic manual, the DSM-5, to a bowl of spaghetti. Hanging over the side are the marginal diagnoses of psychiatry, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism, important for certain subpopulations but not central to the discipline. At [...]

By Ferris Jabr* Part 2 of a series In the offices of psychiatrists and psychologists across the country you can find a rather hefty tome called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM). The current edition of the DSM, the DSM-IV, is something like a field guide to mental disorders: the book pairs [...]

We will soon find ourselves plagued by new forms of distress. No, it’s not the economy. It’s not that we are all becoming socially isolated because of Facebook (though it’s possible we are). Rather, doctors are about to redefine what it means to be mentally ill. A select clique of psychiatrists has been at work [...]

As an editor at Scientific American Mind, I get a sneak peak at a menu of surprises about us—people, that is—that each issue has to offer. As the March/April Mind makes its debut, I wanted to share my favorite brain food from its cognitive kitchen. Here are three not-to-miss messages from its pages. Later this [...]

Guest Blog by Jamil Zaki* Earlier this year, Senator Tom Coburn published a report called “Under the Microscope,” in which he criticized the funding of any research he couldn’t immediately understand as important. Of particularly dubious value, in Coburn’s opinion, are the behavioral and social sciences—including my own field, psychology. Following his report, Coburn proposed [...]

[PART 2 OF 2 BLOGS ON SCHIZOPHRENIA. PART 1.] Before he got sick, my Uncle Glenn attended MIT and earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering. For a while, he made a living designing machine languages to, for example, recognize print and convert it to Braille. At about age 25, he had his first psychotic [...]

According to his two brothers, my uncle Glenn had always been a little odd. He was a quiet kid, and when he spoke—he talked at you, not to you. If he got excited, he might splay his fingers incongruously or his body would abruptly quiver. Never physically aggressive or mean, Glenn had friends—but not many. [...]

A milestone for Big Neuroscience came Wednesday with the publication in Nature of a study on the way genes switch on across the whole human brain. Whole brain is all the vogue. Neuroscientists have devoted inordinate energy in recent years to publicize  the need for, not only gene maps, but for a full wiring diagram [...]

It was Harry’s fault, really. Before Harry, hemp had been a Mexico-America border problem. After Harry, hemp became marijuana and marijuana became illegal. Harry J. Anslinger commandeered the start today’s anti-narcotics law enforcement. But truthfully, he didn’t care much about hemp. He was hunting opiates and cocaine in the 1930s, until the Depression chopped his [...]