Psychiatry in the Digital Age: A Blessing or a Curse?

Social distancing and the shortage of healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of population aging on the healthcare system, as well as the rapid pace of digital innovation are catalyzing the development and implementation of new technologies and digital services in psychiatry. Is this transformation a blessing or a curse for psychiatry? To answer this question, we conducted a literature review covering a broad range of new technologies and eHealth services, including telepsychiatry; computer-, internet-, and app-based cognitive behavioral therapy; virtual reality; digital applied games; a digital medicine system; omics; neuroimaging; machine learning; precision psychiatry; clinical decision support; electronic health records; physician charting; digital language translators; and online mental health resources for patients. We found that eHealth services provide effective, scalable, and cost-efficient options for the treatment of people with limited or no access to mental health care. This review highlights innovative technologies spearheading the way to more effective and safer treatments. We identified artificially intelligent tools that relieve physicians from routine tasks, allowing them to focus on collaborative doctor-patient relationships. The transformation of traditional clinics into digital ones is outlined, and the challenges associated with the successful deployment of digitalization in psychiatry are highlighted.

The impact of COVID-19 on mental health: The interactive roles of brain biotypes and human connection.

COVID-19 along with the mitigation strategies being used to address the virus pose significant threats to our individual and collective mental health. As the crisis evolves and persists, it will be increasingly important for the research community to conduct investigations that address the mental health consequences of COVID-19. The causes of mental health effects in the context of COVID-19 are multifactorial and likely include biological, behavioral, and environmental determinants. We argue that the COVID-19 crisis significantly threatens our basic human need for human connection, which might serve as a crucial environmental factor that could underlie the overall insult to our mental health. Furthermore, "brain styles," which we have previously conceptualized as "biotypes" that are informed by a neural taxonomy, might interact with the universal threat to our need for human connection to explain the mental health consequences of COVID-19 from a precision psychiatry perspective. The goal of this viewpoint is to inspire research on the mental health consequences of COVID-19 from an individualized, brain-based perspective that honors the profound threat that the virus poses to our basic human motivations.