Neuropsychiatry: Definitions, Concepts, and Patient Types.

Neuropsychiatry is an integrative discipline defined by its history, its preferred patients, and its theoretic framework. Dealing with human behavior needs to consider the brain, but such consideration should avoid oversimplification: neurologic understanding is not essential, necessary, or desirable in all conditions encountered in clinical psychiatry. Neuropsychiatric theory is founded on discoveries in the areas of synaptic plasticity and cortical/limbic anatomy (bottom-up), but also evolutionary biology and anthropology (top-down). Going forward, we need to synthesize vital information, distinguish the essential from the trivial or tenuous, and remain open to dialogue with allied disciplines, our patients, and our students.