These Are the Mental Health Pioneers | Explorer

Do you think the United States is doing enough for the treatment of mental illness?

We're doing a good job, but we really should be doing much better. There are methods of treating we know work, but which aren't reaching those who really need it. I think, in the short-term future, we need to do a much better job at applying what we know to help those who are suffering. But to really transform psychiatric care, we need to understand more about this complex organ: the brain.

In Baltimore, an elite team of genetic scientists are doing just that. The problem is, we know nothing about what mental illness really is at a basic biological level. Dr. Daniel Weinberger believes the brain holds the key to unlocking the secrets of mental illnesses and, therefore, how they might more effectively be treated.

"Why would you not study the organ of the illness that you think is the prime target of the illnesses? You wouldn't be a cardiologist and then not study the heart." But this has not been the history of psychiatric research.

"Why not?" Because the brain was always sort of off-limits. And there are big problems in studying the brain. But now we can ask much more incisive questions about how the brain relates to mental illness. With a repository of over 2,200 donated brains, these scientists are trying to understand the genetic mechanisms that cause disorders like depression, anxiety, bipolar, and schizophrenia.

"This is the MyCross could be suite. We have a big investment in taking human cells that we can create into little brain models."

It seems to me that the treatment for mental illness has not changed much in the past 40, 50, even 60 years. "Why is that?" I think the real reason we haven't seen these breakthroughs is we have not had breakthroughs on understanding mechanisms. So, now that we have some of these clues, we will find new ways to make these people's lives better.

And in the meantime, neurosurgeons are experimenting with new technologies to hack the brain.

"What are you doing?"

"All right, okay, yeah hi comfortable? Yeah, good. All right."

This is Dr. Samir Chef, a top New York neurosurgeon. "Don't feel like it's a problem or it's a bad thing if you don't feel it or you do feel it or whatever."

"Yeah, yeah."

Today is the very first time he's performing experimental brain surgery on a psychiatric patient, and he's allowing cameras into the operating room.

"Were you nervous?"

"A lot of excitement, a lot of just anxiety as to whether this is going to work or not. I do deep brain stimulation surgery almost every week. Of course it carries some risk, but wrapping one's mind around surgery for a psychiatric illness is difficult for many people."

Deep brain stimulation, or DBS, is a surgical procedure most commonly performed on patients with Parkinson's disease. Tiny electrodes are implanted into targeted areas of the brain and connect by wires to a pulse generator, which is implanted in the chest, much like a pacemaker.

Using electricity, the device painlessly stimulates the brain in a way that can relieve symptoms, like in the case of Parkinson's: tremors. Scientists don't understand exactly why it works, but many believe the pulses may help reset the malfunctioning part of the brain.

Success rates and side effects are highly variable, but for many people, the outcomes can be dramatic. And in recent years, doctors have started exploring the use of DBS on a small group of carefully vetted patients to treat psychiatric conditions like PTSD, eating disorders, and drug-resistant depression.

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