Nicole Rust
Professor
Director of Visual Memory Lab
Department of Psychology
University of Pennsylvania
In 1998, Eric Kandel published the brilliant essay A New Intellectual Framework for Psychiatry. In it, he described a revolution to move psychiatry away from the psychoanalytic tradition (focused exclusively on the mind) to one that incorporated biology, with an emphasis on genetic inheritance and genetic expression. He predicted that this revolution would have a profound impact on psychiatry. While notable discoveries have been made in the 27 years since, those profound impacts have yet to be realized. For instance, one goal has long been to create biological tests (like blood tests and brain scans) to diagnose psychiatric conditions, and those tests still do not exist. In this talk, I will argue that a second revolution is happening in this space — one required to fulfill Kandel’s original vision. To illustrate these changes, I will update Kandel’s framework to incorporate emerging ideas. I will also caution (as Kandel did) that success will require interaction between practitioners focused on broader psychiatric considerations and those focused on more detailed biological insights.
View a recording of this session here.