The George Washington Institute for Neuroscience to host NIMH Director Thomas Insel, Sept. 16.
National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) Director Thomas Insel will be the inaugural speaker for the George Washington Institute for Neuroscience/Children’s National Medical Center-Center for Neuroscience Research Seminar Series.
“When I considered who might be the best possible inaugural speaker for our new seminar series, I immediately thought of Tom Insel,” says Anthony-Samuel LaMantia, director of the new GW Institute for Neuroscience.
“I can’t think of a more compelling way to begin bringing together the GW neuroscience research community to consider future research opportunities than to hear Tom’s thoughts on the challenges before us in thinking about the brain, behavior and disease.”
Dr. Insel will speak at 4 p.m. on Thursday in Ross Hall 101, 2300 Eye Street, NW. His lecture is free and open to the university community.
Titled “Rethinking Mental Illness,” his address will examine new challenges in mental health research and provide insight into the current public health burdens of psychiatric diseases, including cost, number of people affected, new approaches and translational research.
Dr. Insel will also discuss NIMH plans for stimulating research into causes and potential therapies for psychiatric diseases, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and autism, and focus on the importance of studying basic mechanisms of neural development to provide greater insight into the causes of these diseases.
NIMH is the component of the National Institutes of Health charged with generating the knowledge needed to understand, treat and prevent mental disorders. Prior to his appointment as NIMH director in 2002, Dr. Insel was a professor of psychiatry at Emory University. There, he was founding director of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, one of the largest science and technology centers funded by the National Science Foundation, and also director of an NIH-funded center for autism research.