MENTAL HEALTH

 

 

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) aims at reducing the lumber of mental illness and behavioral disorders through research on mind, brain, and behavior. This Workgroup has come up with several areas of mental health priorities for research that are particularly ripe for increased investment. They include emotion, development, social interactions, neural circuits, sex and gender differences and mechanisms Intracellular signal integration.

Predominant characteristics of a number of mental illnesses and behavioral disorders involve emotional regulatory processes that have been distorted. By this token, the institute has identified two key areas of emphasis; the neurobiology of, mood, motivation and emotion; and, the relationship between emotion and cognition.

Ability to engage in harmonious social relationships, deal with both conflict and aggression, and be given and avail nurturance are important to mental health, and eccentricity in these behaviors and courses are elementary in the development, description, and course of psychopathologies.

Tristram H & Spicke F.(1977) aver that ‘the coming on of new tools and technologies avails a special chance to advance positive perception of the structure and functioning of brain circuits that cover health and abnormal behavior’. 

The risk levels for many psychiatric disorders are noticeably different in males and females. Males are prune to higher risk for onset disorders such as autism and attention deficit disorder, than do females who suffer higher rates of major depressive disorder, eating disorders and anxiety disorders. Rates of schizophrenia are similar in males and females but differ consistently when factors of age are considered.

These priorities are expensive and there is great need for adequate funding to be channeled to mental health. As Funk et al, (2003) observes, ‘mental health financing is a powerful tool with which policy- makers can develop and shape quality mental health systems. In the absence of adequate financing, mental health policies and plans remain in the realm of rhetoric and good intentions’

 The quantity and quality aspects are vital when comparing these priorities. Though a factor may appear to benefit a large number of persons with mental disorders (in terms of quantity) it may fall short when weighed in terms of quality if it can’t provide a sure-fire ways of combating disorders permanently.  

On cross cutting priorities, adolescence and earlier phases of development have to be given high priority. Frankly these are stages in which manifestations of certain psychiatric disorders increases.  even stages during which environmental effects on brain function can be particularly apparent, though little is known about the neural, behavioral and physiological, changes that underlie these developmental shifts and vulnerabilities.

 

REFERENCES

 

Funk M et al, (2003) Mental health financing. New York, World Health Organization.

 

Manderscheid, R. (1998).Mental Health: United States. Darby, DIANE Publishing,

 

Tristram H & Spicke F.(1977): Mental health: philosophical perspectives: proceedings of the Fourth Trans-disciplinary Symposium on Philosophy and Medicine D. Reidel Pub. Co.

 

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/index.shtml retrieved on 28th July 2009.