Head of NIMH, Dr. Tom Insel, Leaving for Google

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Monkey House

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http://news.sciencemag.org/people-e...nation-s-mental-health-director-leave-his-job

This may be one of the biggest stories in psychiatry for the year and its impact will be profound. With the NIMH loosing their top research psychiatrist to Google - it will be interesting to see if the research agenda at NIMH changes course and what Google may soon be producing. If nothing else, this move signifies that digital mental health is not a fad and that we will be seeing more tools like smartphone apps, wearables, and computer programs targeted towards mental health.

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I'm really excited to see what Google is planning... I feel like they can do things faster and more cleverly than the rest of us can because the private sector can avoid a lot of things that slow us down elsewhere...
 
I'm just waiting for the moment when Google Glass begins monitoring your internet searches and offers on-the-fly CBT.

You're too late...I just completed a mandatory online computer-assisted therapy for 'mTBI Denier Disorder'

I'm feeling much better now :)
 
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Well, most things Google attempts actually fail, so I wouldn't hold my breath.
This.

And I'd caution folks to confuse the loss of him leaving as head of NIMH being proportional the benefit of him being snatched up by Google. There is a very real chance that he'll be paid top dollar at Google to work on a bunch of projects that have minimal if any impact. Google bleeds money on stuff like this and rarely has much to show for it. They can afford to operate this way.
 
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good riddance. hopefully they will find someone who is open to a wider portfolio of research into mental illness including phenomenology, health services research, psychotherapy trials, social and community psychiatry, epidemiology, psychological mechanisms, neuropsychiatry, psychiatry and law, and mental health policy, which have been woefully neglected by his singular focus on neuroimaging and genetics which has not only failed to advance the field but prevented real advancement in the care of people with mental illness.
 
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Follow the money.

As a clinical psychologist I know that there is plenty of research evidence to support the solid efficacy of interventions like behavioral activation and moderate physical exercise to help people significantly reduce their depressive symptoms. These potential solutions aren't sexy, aren't really that complicated, and certainly don't make anyone rich by providing/suggesting them. That's probably why they're not more widespread as actually delivered interventions for depression. Of course there are collateral complexities to any case involving clinical depression (including the neurochemical / psychopharm angle-- I am not minimizing that angle but I think that the lay and professional awareness of the potential need for medication treatment for clinical depression is already well established these days).
 
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