Schumann G, Andreassen OA, Banaschewski T, et al. Addressing Global Environmental Challenges to Mental Health Using Population Neuroscience: A Review. JAMA Psychiatry. 2023;80(10):1066–1074.
The new review paper from the environMENTAL EU Project in JAMA Psychiatry emphasizes how interdisciplinary research can help to unravel underlying mechanisms of environmentally-related mental illness. Climate change, pollution, urbanization, socioeconomic inequality, and psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have caused massive changes in environmental conditions that affect brain health during the life span, both on a population level as well as on the level of the individual. How these environmental factors influence the brain, behavior, and mental illness is not well known. The research strategies reviewed here will lead to the development of objective biomarkers and evidence-based interventions that will significantly improve outcomes of environment-related mental illness.