Mental disorders are diseases that affect cognition, emotion, and behavioral control and substantially interfere both with the ability of children to learn and with the ability of adults to function in their families, at work, and in the broader society. Mental disorders tend to begin early in life and often run a chronic recurrent course. They are common in all countries where their prevalence has been examined. Because of the combination of high prevalence, early onset, persistence, and impairment, mental disorders make a major contribution to total disease burden. Although most of the burden attributable to mental disorders is disability related, premature mortality, especially from suicide, is not insignificant. Mental disorders have complex etiologies that involve interactions among multiple genetic and non-genetic risk factors.

Gender is related to risk in many cases: males have higher rates of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, and substance use disorders; females have higher rates of major depressive disorder, most anxiety disorders, and eating disorders. Biochemical and morphological abnormalities of the brain associated with schizophrenia, autism, mood, and anxiety disorders are being identified using approaches such as postmortem analysis and noninvasive neuroimaging. Major worldwide efforts under way to identify risk-conferring genes for mental disorders are proving challenging, but initial results are promising. In Neuro Forum 2023 the research experts will bring an holistic approach in identifying the gene or genes causing or creating vulnerability for a disorder should help us understand what goes wrong in the brain to produce mental illness and should have a clinical effect by contributing to improved diagnostics and therapeutics.