Abolish Psychiatry, Abolish Neurology: Toward a Unified Discipline of Brain Medicine
Cureus. 2025 May 26;17(5):e84817. doi: 10.7759/cureus.84817. eCollection 2025 May.
ABSTRACT
The longstanding division between psychiatry and neurology is a historical artifact, not a scientific necessity. Despite addressing the same organ, these fields operate as separate disciplines, fragmenting education, care, research, regulation, and reimbursement. This editorial argues for the abolition of that divide and the creation of a unified discipline of brain medicine. Drawing on advances in systems neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and neuromodulation, I present a comprehensive critique of the dual-specialty model and propose an integrated alternative. The editorial synthesizes data from brain network research, the lived inefficiencies of medical training and healthcare delivery, and the constraints placed on innovation by legacy frameworks. I highlight how computational psychiatry, neurobiology, and regulatory reform can converge to enable a model that is mechanistically grounded and clinically effective. Through two conceptual tables, I demonstrate the shared circuitry across traditionally labeled psychiatric and neurological conditions, and the system-wide efficiencies gained through integration. The future of brain care lies not in silos, but in circuits, and it is time our institutions, educators, payers, and innovators catch up with science. This is a call to unify how we understand, teach, regulate, and treat the brain not only for administrative elegance but also for clinical reality, therapeutic progress, and human dignity.
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