The decision was motivated by commercial considerations: Because many generic psychiatric drugs are available, because new medications do not work better than the older ones, and because most candidates aimed at new brain targets fail after years of clinical trials, companies concluded that there are better chances of identifying genetic biomarkers than neurobiological ones (Abbott 2011). This crisis joins the weakening of trust sketched above, rooted in the practices of industry and the failure to globalize psychiatric diagnoses and classifications effectively.
Inspired by the homonymous book by Fernando Vidal and Francisco Ortega, this timespace presents the authors' genealogy of the cerebral subject and the influence of the neurological discourse in human sciences, mental health and culture.