Addressing Underserved Populations and Unmet Needs

Extract

In this issue of CNS Spectrums we examine some underserved populations who continue to have real unmet needs. For example, patients in forensic and correctional settings have serious psychopathology resulting in substantial morbidity and mortality, and yet human subjects concerns have led them to be very much understudied. Likewise, patients with treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are quite common, and yet, compared with other disorders such as schizophrenia, few resources have been devoted to addressing their substantial functional disability. Finally, cognitive dysfunction in the elderly is an enormous problem, yet little work has addressed the role of gonadal dysfunction, or male menopause, in specific cognitive deficits of the elderly.