Department of Psychiatry

Photo of the lobby of the Depression Center, Rachel Upjohn Building

The Department of Psychiatry is part of the University of Michigan Health System, one of the nation’s leading health care facilities, and is home to the nation’s first comprehensive Depression Center and the Molecular and Behavioral Neurosciences Institute.

We provide patients with state-of-the-art treatment and care of psychiatric disorders, much of it based on the innovative research done by our faculty. Our psychiatric care facility is one of the best in the country, and was one of the very first to provide modern diagnosis and research on mental disorders.

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Depression Center

Photo of the Depression Center, Rachel Upjohn Building

Established in 2001, the University of Michigan Depression Center is the first center of its kind devoted entirely to bringing depression into the mainstream of medical research, care, education and public policy. It is at the forefront in changing the paradigm of how depression is understood and treated.

The mission of the University of Michigan Depression Center is to detect depression and bipolar disorders earlier, treat more effectively, prevent recurrences and progression, counteract stigma, and improve public policy.

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The Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute

Photo of the MBNI

In the 1950s, America’s perception of mental health was a lot different from today. Psychiatrists and psychologists struggled to explain mental illnesses in scientific terms and to provide treatment to those who faced them. The Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute was established in 1955 with the goal of “applying scientific methods to the study of human behavior, normal and abnormal.”

Using an interdisciplinary approach, the Institute’s scientists are leaders in affective and cognitive neuroscience, developmental neurobiology, cell signaling, and neurogenetics and genomics. Together with their laboratory teams, they have made many important discoveries about how the brain functions, how its mechanisms are altered in people with mental illness, and how genes and molecules influence human behavior.

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