The impact of current developments in the neurosciences on the concept of psychiatric diseases

The neurosciences have experienced a spectacular boom during the past decades: new and improved methods in molecularand cell-biology as well as imaging techniques have deepened our understanding of the nervous system and contributed to the understanding of neurological and psychiatric diseases. In addition, a range of novel interventional methods – e.g. from the fields of neuro-surgery, neuro-prosthetics and psychopharmacology – has been developed with partly impressive results. Despite of this considerable advance the relationship between neuro-scientific research and the clinical disciplines neurology and psychiatry proves to be strained at times. Especially in psychiatry the extent to which the neurosciences improve clinical practice or, to the contrary, amount to an undue “scientification” of psychiatry is a hotly debated issue.