[Psychiatry as clinical neuroscience]

For more than a century, psychiatry has established its clinical practice on syndrome-based descriptions grouped into exclusive diagnostic categories and on the prescription of psychotropic drugs aimed at modifying signs and symptoms, with etiological hypotheses formulated from different theoretical frameworks, ranging from psychoanalytic to neurobiological. Recent research from a neuroscientific theoretical framework suggests that different psychiatric illnesses are interconnected at different levels. The approach to mental disorders from this new perspective has generated more precise etiological hypotheses, has favored the development of initiatives that recommend a radical change in psychiatric taxonomy, and has oriented pharmacological research to other therapeutic targets. This article raises the possibility of psychiatry being positioned as a clinical neuroscience based on studies on brain connectivity as a substrate of mental functioning (Human Connectome Project), transdiagnostic nosological classification initiatives from a dimensional and spectral perspective (Research Domain Criteria and Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology) the new psychopharmacological nomenclature based on neurosciences and the findings in genomic association studies. The paradigm shift for the approach to mental disorders also includes the training of specialists in psychiatry, which is why the inclusion of neuroscience subjects in medical residency programs is recommended.