For over two decades now, researchers have been discovering more and more links between genes and mental disorders, and generally improving their knowledge of the brain. But we are still a long way off in our understanding of how the brain actually works and base much of our current understanding of brain mechanics on theories and educated guesses.

So I was glad to read today that MIT is the recipient of a generous $20 million gift from a family whose daughter suffers from bipolar disorder, James and Patricia Poitras. They should be commended for bypassing the many other options available to such large donors, and giving money directly to MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, one of the premier research labs in the world in neuroscience. That means more of the money will go to direct research, which in our minds is always a good thing.

Progress on mental illness is desperately needed. Serious disorders affect tens of millions of Americans, and because the brain is so complex, scientific understanding of psychiatric diseases lags badly: diagnoses are still based largely on self-described symptoms rather than biological markers, and treatment often fails.

The growing scientific assault on mental illness is sparking such energy among researchers that it is becoming reminiscent of scientists’ war on cancer of a generation ago, said Dr. Edward Scolnick, who oversees the Broad’s psychiatric research. Then, as now, he said, Boston academic institutions and hospitals combined forces; they came up with “a lot of terrific discoveries in cancer biology.”

Indeed, a few decades ago, a cancer diagnosis meant almost certain death. Now such a diagnosis, especially when made early on in the disease, means almost certain survival. While mental illness generally doesn’t have such extreme outcomes (although we still suffer from over 30,000 suicides a year in the U.S.), this kind of direct money infusion will almost certainly ensure we are in a much better treatment position a decade from now than we are today.

Thanks go out to the Poitras family, and to MIT for having the researchers and facilities available to make such research a reality today.

The full article is available over at The Boston Globe.

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

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    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 22 Oct 2007
    Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.