[In Depth] Mental health chief to stress neural circuits
Thursday, October 27, 2016 - 13:41
in Health & Medicine
Last month, neuroscientist and psychiatrist Joshua Gordon, 49, took the helm of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the $1.55 billion NIMH is the world's largest funder of mental health research. Its new director spent the last 19 years at Columbia University completing a psychiatry residency, studying mouse models of psychiatric disease, and, once a week, seeing anxious and depressed patients in his private practice. Now, Gordon faces challenges that include the complaints of clinical psychiatrists that NIMH is funding too much basic science research, shortchanging studies on existing treatments and services. Science sat down with Gordon last week. Author: Meredith Wadman