Current Research in Psychiatry

Commentary Open Access

Digital companions, real casualties: A commentary on rising AI-related mental health crises

Keith Robert Head

Reports of suicide linked to generative AI (GenAI) are increasing, yet regulatory responses remain fragmented and contested. Expanding on observations recently published by Head (2025), this commentary reviews documented AI-mediated suicide cases from 2022 to 2025 and evaluates current platform safety measures.

Editorial Open Access

The vexatious black box of psychiatry may be smaller because of this issue

Tom Grimes

Psychiatry is burdened by a much larger black box than several other medical practices. Some practitioners have chosen fields where mechanical interventions address a patient’s disability and so the black box is small. But psychiatry is one of those medical specialties whose practitioners confront perplexing unknowns. 

Mini Review Open Access

Improving pain psychology treatment initiation rates: an integrated evidence-informed framework

Mirsad Serdarevic

Psychological interventions represent a core component of contemporary interdisciplinary chronic pain treatment, yet treatment initiation following referral to pain psychology services remains consistently low. Empirical studies across behavioral health and pain medicine demonstrate that referral alone is insufficient to ensure patient engagement with psychological care. This gap between referral and treatment initiation represents a major implementation barrier limiting the impact of evidence-based psychological pain interventions.

Literature Review Open Access

Stewardship of psychiatric healthcare utilization: the role of systems-based, community-based, and individually-based factors

Joshua Baruth , Magnolia Hammel

As the demand for mental health care increases, acute care settings like emergency departments and inpatient psychiatric units have become overburdened. Intermediate levels of care and alternate treatment pathways are understudied and could efficiently utilize existing resources while also improving patient outcomes.

Commentary Open Access

Inflammation as a driver and consequence of addiction: translating Mendelian randomization findings into psychiatric practice and research

Xiang Chen , Longtao Yang , Yihui Tang , Ben Wu , Jun Liu

Substance use disorders (SUD) have long been diagnosed and monitored through subjective self-report, leaving a critical gap in objective biomarkers for subtyping, treatment response, and relapse prediction. Cao et al. provided pivotal genetic evidence for bidirectional causal relationships between addiction phenotypes and systemic inflammation using Mendelian Randomization (MR), a methodological breakthrough that opens a tangible path toward closing this gap.