# Toward a new understanding of mental illness

- Institution: TED
- Department: TEDxCaltech
- Speaker: Thomas Insel
- Year: 2013
- Level: For everyone
- Language: English
- Subjects: Biology, Medicine and health, Psychology and the brain
- Source: [TED](https://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_insel_toward_a_new_understanding_of_mental_illness)
- Licence: [CC BY-NC-ND 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) (Non-commercial use only, and no changed versions.)
- Who can watch: Teens profiles and older (sources give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the source's own words)

Today, thanks to better early detection, there are 63% fewer deaths from heart disease than there were just a few decades ago. Thomas Insel, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health, wonders: Could we do the same for depression and schizophrenia? The first step in this new avenue of research, he says, is a crucial reframing: for us to stop thinking about "mental disorders" and start understanding them as "brain disorders."

## Lectures

1. [Toward a new understanding of mental illness](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/learn/ted/thomas_insel_toward_a_new_understanding_of_mental_illness/67034c1d147e), 13 min (TED's player)