Our 50-Year Journey of Discovery in Neuropsychiatry
The mental health crisis in the United States is not something that has materialized overnight – it’s been growing for a long time. For the past 50 years UCLA has been at the forefront of mental health innovation.
Our journey as California’s largest mental health research institute and the second largest in the U.S. — with a psychiatric hospital and psychiatry training program that consistently rank among the top five nationally — has led us to a new, neurosocial paradigm that integrates neuroscience with clinical and social science. It is about understanding the interaction of social environment and brain biology in mental health at all stages of life. It’s about applying what we know to solve everyday problems: taking neuroscience from the lab bench to the park bench, and even the piano bench.
Our Journey so Far
In the academic year 1974-75, a national policy of deinstitutionalization led to closure of the Los Angeles State Mental Hospital. In its stead, state mental health funding was channeled through UCLA for mental health research and training in UCLA’s new Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital (NPIH), for premier mental health research and training programs. In the decades that followed, it developed insights and treatments that are now used around the globe.
In 1999 a gift from Lynda and Stewart Resnick helped support the construction of a new facility on the fourth floor of the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. The NPH moved across the street into the new state-of-the-art hospital and was renamed the Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA in 2004.
In 2004, the Neuropsychiatric Institute was renamed the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA following a gift from Jane and Terry Semel.
Our Journey Continues
Today the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital, the Semel Institute, and the UCLA Department of Psychiatry remain deeply intertwined, bringing discoveries from the laboratory to the bedside, into communities and back again. Our cross-disciplinary approach embraces the use of digital mental health monitoring through smartphones and smartwatches to optimize treatment and prevention. It embraces mobile mental health care to reach those without housing and high risk youth. It rigorously studies and uses music, visual art, and dance for mental health among those with developmental or psychiatric disability, in community organizations and schools. It embraces ecological medicine, which uses nature prescriptions, community gardening and therapy animals to foster inter-species connections that have been lost in modern life.
Semel Institute: Highlights from 50 Years of Leadership in Mental Health Research
Cracking the Code for Opioid Receptors
Researchers at the Semel first cracked the genetic code for an opioid receptor in the 1990s. The Semel continues to be a world-leader in both understanding the biology of addiction as well as the treatments for addiction.
ExploreElevating Community Research
Semel faculty published the first JAMA community participatory study led by a community organizer (Jones & Wells, 2007), a milestone publication that the Cochrane Review identifies as the strongest international evidence of community engagement’s impact on health care. This is one of decades of leading community engaged mental health prevention and care research.
ExploreAdvancing Brain Mapping
The Brain Mapping Center at the Semel Institute was one of the first in the world to use advanced MRI to study brain function and psychiatric disorders, including Alzheimer’s, autism, mood disorders, schizophrenia, ADHD and anxiety.
ExplorePioneering Autism Care
Semel faculty developed the autism assessment tools that are now gold standard of care globally (ADOS and ADI-R). Our outpatient services are world leaders in implementation of treatment strategies that help kids and families navigate Autism. Semel continues to be at the forefront of research in this area exploring the complicated mechanismsunderlying neurodevelopmental disorders.
ExploreApplying the Science of Creativity
Semel Institute houses the National Endowment for the Arts Research Lab which studies the impact of the arts on psychological well-being and health outcomes and houses the Tennenbaum Center for the Biology of Creativity with ongoing studies of the impact of music and other art forms on the brain.
ExploreHealing Trauma
For more than 20 years, Semel researchers have led high-impact research on traumatic stress and resilience models. Our teams have provided national leadership through SAMSHA National Child Traumatic Stress Network and have led pioneering trauma-informed prevention and treatment research and services for populations affected by trauma and adversity.
ExploreExploring Psychedelics
Over the past decade, there has been a strong public interest in psychedelic-assisted therapy research. Semel has been gathering a group of researchers to explore this new frontier.
ExploreInvesting in Genetics and Mental Health
Semel provides international leadership for the study of genetics underlying autism, depression, and psychosis
ExploreTreating Depression and Anxiety
In 1987, Prozac changed everything. Today, our psychiatrists continue to lead in treating depression and anxiety across all ages.
ExploreLeading Brain Stimulation Developments
Semel’s Neuromodulation Division is at the forefront of developing Neurostimulation Therapies, including the emerging use of deep brain stimulation (for treatment-resistant depression and OCD expanded nonpharmacologic treatment options).
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