Zhong Cao, Yuheng Luo, Lirui Jiao, Wenjin Chen, Klaus Prettner, Michael Kuhn, David E. Bloom, Dean T. Jamison, Till Winfried Bärnighausen & Simiao Chen Nature Medicine (2026) Depression is a major contributor to the global burden of diseases with substantial socioeconomic consequences. Here, to estimate the economic effects of depression, we developed a macroeconomic model using data from the World Bank and Global Burden of Disease Study 2021. The model estimated the impact

Aug. 2026 What if the generation accused of being unable to tolerate uncertainty is being trained never to escape it? The next message, like, ranking, image or scandal may arrive at any moment—or not at all. Uncertainty is no longer only a condition of the future. Digital platforms turn it into the rhythm of the present. Psychiatry does not diagnose intolerance of uncertainty as an independent disorder; clinical psychology and psychiatry treat it as a transdiagnostic vulnerab

Aug. 2026 A therapist who agrees with everything is an accomplice. We are manufacturing accomplices at scale. A Nature Medicine study tested nine frontier chatbots across 810 multi-turn conversations with simulated profiles of depression, psychosis, mania, obsessive–compulsive disorder and insecure attachment. Concerning behaviour was widespread. It was highest in psychosis and mania, and when users sought emotional dependence or glorification of extreme states. Risk generall

Aug. 2026 Is that the real cost? No. It is Meta’s bill so far in one American state—and the company is appealing. New Mexico imposed $375 million in civil penalties plus a $567 million five-year abatement fund, with $420 million for treatment. After a three-week trial, the court found that Facebook and Instagram had “caused and substantially contributed to” a public nuisance affecting minors’ mental health and safety. The injury had migrated into families, schools, hospitals

Aug. 2026 The trick is crude: break down visibly and you become a case; keep producing while you deteriorate and you remain normal. A 2026 Lancet analysis estimated 1.17 billion prevalent cases across twelve mental disorders in 2023—95.5% more than in 1990, with a 24.2% rise even after age standardization (GBD 2023 Mental Disorder Collaborators 2026). These are modelled cases, not unique persons or a census of psychic damage. Burnout lies outside this diagnostic perimeter: th

August 2026 A 2026 Danish qualitative study reconceptualizes adolescent ill-being as socially produced pathologies. It identifies four positions: hyper-significance, fantasised significance, apathy and invisibility (Lausten Kragh, Jacobsen, and Kjær 2026). Its force lies in overturning the usual clinical perspective: the “troubled adolescent” may be carrying a disorder of the social world. In hyper-significance, every examination, outfit, conversation and feeling becomes cons

July 2026 What if mental-health awareness does not merely reveal disorders, but alters the threshold at which ordinary experience is interpreted as one? In a double-blind randomized trial, 215 healthy young adults attended a workshop on ADHD, ADHD plus a ten-minute explanation of nocebo effects, or sleep. The ADHD-awareness group reported higher self-diagnosis scores than controls immediately (standardized β = 0.80) and one week later (β = 0.50), although their reported ADHD

July 2026 What if a psychiatric disorder begins in an infected organ, but becomes “mental” the moment medicine loses sight of its trajectory? A US health-record study compared more than one million matched pairs after hospitalization. Across infections affecting ten bodily systems, subsequent risks of most psychiatric and neurological diagnoses were elevated over two years. Against patients hospitalized for noninfectious causes, 116 of 140 infection–disorder comparisons showe

Lauren Van De Hey April 2026 Is mental health an emerging political identity? In the first study that investigates experiencing mental illness as a political identity, I find that it is. Using a nationally representative survey of Americans fielded in the 2022 CES (N = 1,000), I answer the question: “For whom is mental illness a political identity?” I adapt Jardina’s work (White Identity Politics. 1st ed. Cambridge University Press, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108645157

Ashleigh Golden & Elias Aboujaoude March 2026 Millions are turning to general-purpose AI chatbots for psychological support, potentially reinforcing symptoms such as intolerance of uncertainty, “need to know” compulsions, and perfectionism. Clinical observation and emerging research suggest chatbot features exacerbate transdiagnostic avoidance—a process integral to OCD and anxiety—perpetuating maladaptive cycles and hindering corrective learning. We propose a framework in wh

March 2026 Kuan-Pin Su , Soanseng Hsuan-Cheng Chen , Jane Pei-Chen Chang Purpose of review: Rapid urbanization and the algorithmically mediated digital environment have been linked to a "digital pandemic" in youth mental health. As Generation Z transitions from play-based to phone-based childhoods, understanding how digital architecture interacts with urban stressors is critical. This review delineates the socio-neurobiological mechanisms underlying this crisis and proposes

Mowafa Househ , Hurmat Ali Shah , Zain Ul Abideen Tariq , Diana Alsayed Hassan , Mohamed Khalifa , Jens Schneider , Mounir Hamdi , Alaa Abd-Alrazaq , Arfan Ahmad , Barry Solaiman , Andre Kushniruk & Saleem Khaldoon Al-Nuaimi Digital mental health (DMH) encompasses telepsychiatry, mobile apps, games and artificial intelligence (AI)-augmented interventions. In recent years, there has been a steady increase in the development and deployment of DMH solutions, particularly thos

Dec. 2025 Joseph M. Pierre, MD; Ben Gaeta, MD; Govind Raghavan, MD; and Karthik V. Sarma, MD, PhD ABSTRACT Background: Anecdotal reports of psychosis emerging in the context of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot use have been increasingly reported in the media. However, it remains unclear to what extent these cases represent the induction of new-onset psychosis versus the exacerbation of pre-existing psychopathology. We report a case of new-onset psychosis in the setting o

Dec. 2025 Per Carlbring, Gerhard Andersson Background: Reports of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots fueling delusions in vulnerable users have popularized the notion of “AI psychosis”. We argue the risk is not unprecedented. Individuals with psychosis have long incorporated books, films, music, and emerging technologies into their delusional thinking. Methods: We review historical parallels, summarize why large language models (LLMs) may reinforce psychotic thinking via s

Dec. 2025 Alexandre Hudo N ; Emmanuel Sti P The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into daily life has introduced unprecedented forms of human-machine interaction, prompting psychiatry to reconsider the boundaries between environment, cognition, and technology. This Viewpoint reviews the concept of “AI psychosis,” which is a framework to understand how sustained engagement with conversational AI systems might trigger, amplify, or reshape psychotic experiences in vu

Dec. 2025 Qiyang Zhang ; Renwen Zhang ; Yiying Xiong ; Yuan Sui ; Chang Tong ; Fu-Hung Lin Background In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has driven the rapid development of AI mental health chatbots. Most current reviews investigated the effectiveness of rule-based or retrieval-based chatbots. To date, there is no comprehensive review that systematically synthesizes the effect of generative AI (GenAI) chatbot’s impact on mental health. Objective This revi

Dec. 2025 Au YeungKing, J., Dalmasso, J., Foschini, L., Dobson, R. J. B., & Kraljevic, Z. Background: The proliferation of Large Language Models (LLMs) presents significant opportunities in healthcare but also introduces risks, highlighted by emerging reports of ”AI psychosis,” where user-AI interactions may exacerbate or induce psychosis or adverse psychological symptoms. While the sycophantic and agreeable nature of LLMs is often beneficial, it can become a vector for harm

Dec. 2025 Samson Nivins, PhD; Michael A. Mooney, PhD; Joel Nigg, PhD; Torkel Klingberg, PhD BACKGROUND Children spend significant amount of time using digital media (DM), and longer exposure may increase attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)-related symptoms, although findings are mixed. We investigated longitudinal association between different types of DM use and ADHD-related symptoms in school-aged children, accounting for genetic predisposition and socioeconomic

Dec. 2025 Elombe Calvert, MBBS ; Maddalena Cipriani, BS ; Bridget Dwyer, BS Victoria Lisowski, BS ; Jane Mikkelson, BA ; Kelly Chen, MS ; Matthew Flathers, BA ; Christine Hau, MS ; Winna Xia, MS ; Juan Castillo, MA ; Alex Dhima, BS ; Sean Ryan, MS ; John Torous, MD, MBI Key Points Question Is reducing social media use associated with behavior and mental health outcomes among young adults? Findings In this cohort study of 373 participants, problematic use of social media w

Nov. 2025 Shirin Abdallah Alimour Mohammad Alrabeei The accelerating integration of digital technologies with human experience has precipitated profound cognitive, emotional, and behavioral transformations, giving rise to emergent psychopathologies that remain insufficiently addressed by traditional diagnostic taxonomies. This study introduces a novel reconceptualization of mental health in the digital era, delineating four original diagnostic categories: Cognitive Fragmentat