[WEB SITE] Brain Training And The End Of The Prozac Generation

More than 20 percent of Americans regularly consume prescribed drugs related to mental health issues, earning contemporary America the nickname, “the Prozac Generation.”  However, developing safe, targeted, and effective drugs for mental illnesses has increasingly become a struggle for the pharmaceutical industry.

As a result, there’s been a gradual withdrawal of research dollars from this area, despite the fact that globally, the mental health pharmaceutical market is worth more than $80 billion.

According to the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH), more than 57 million people, or 26 percent of the U.S. population suffer from some form of mental health problem. But despite the ongoing need, one can legitimately claim that research has not produced a novel neurological drug in the past 30 years.  Additionally, many drugs currently on the market have been increasingly identified with negative side effects and limited efficacy.

Until recently, most mood disorders were attributed to an imbalance in a single neurochemical, such as serotonin. Increasingly, scientists have come to acknowledge that this is an oversimplification that can lead to counterproductive treatment.

Due to the complexity of brain networks, these pharmaceutical compounds may work to alleviate some symptoms, but they may exacerbate others. They may even contribute to new problems, such as cognitive impairment, suicide, or diabetes. Because the diagnosis of many conditions is a highly subjective process based on patient self-reporting, identifying the appropriate course of treatment is frequently an exercise in trial and error.

High cost, negative press, and the lack of an efficacy model have resulted in the drying up of the drug pipeline for pharmaceutical treatment of mental illness.

Are we moving into a post-pharmaceutical age in the treatment of neurological and psychiatric illness? If the flurry of wearable sensors, brain-computer interfaces, and non-invasive brain stimulation research are any measure, then the answer is “yes.”

Brain training can be used to treat problems related to cognition, behavior, and emotion. (Image Source: Evoke Neuroscience)

New technology and an increased focus on traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), have led to a greater understanding of the complexity of the brain. Instead of focusing on single chemical neurotransmitters affecting cognition and behavior, mental health research has evolved to address neurological “functions” through models of neural circuits known as “neural networks.”

Continue –> Brain Training And The End Of The Prozac Generation.