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We've done a lot of model testing over the last few months with our site.  Our quick take on the experience is that trying to help people find a qualified local mental health provider is a hard process.  Also, for the time being we'd like to avoid models that could be called unclear like RealAge.  In the new release (actually returning to an old release), our value proposition remains transparent: we provide an objective personalized diagnosis for a fee. We do it rapidly, we do it comprehensively. We think we do it better than anyone else on the Internet. We don't think that the DSM-IV is the end all be all final word on mental health or the mind, but we think Mindsite remains an interesting and actionable perspective.

Primative reward, computer brain models, evolutionary psychology, neurochemistry, mental health, and money.  In a "Hot Topics" paper from Sciencewatch, Wolfram Schultz talks (mp3 link) about reward and behavior - he provides some very interesting insights into a number of subjects not limited to happiness, economics, and utility theory.

There are no particular sensory receptors through which the brain is specifically informed about the occurrence of a reward event or object. Thus the brain cannot identify a reward from the activation of a neural "labeled reward line." The brain needs to extract the reward information through its own neural mechanisms.

To investigate this we need to define what a reward is, and this should be based on behavior. Ideally, the same definition would hold for vegetative rewards, like food, liquid, and sex, as well as for more elaborate rewards, like money that we use for daily decisions.

The paper describes some of the basic behavioral theories relating to reward, namely animal learning theory from experimental psychology, and utility theory from microeconomics. Through neuroscience it connects entirely different scientific disciplines.

If you are interested in a more digestable version of what Schultz's work touches on, Money magazine has a great article from 2002.

...Schultz studies the workings of dopamine, the brain chemical that gives you a "natural high." Dopamine is what makes you feel good when a stock you buy goes up, and neurons transmit that chemical to many parts of the brain, including the nucleus accumbens. The latest scientific discoveries about dopamine have huge implications for investing.

First, your brain loves long shots. The less likely or predictable a reward is, the more active your dopamine neurons become and the longer they fire--flooding your brain with a soft euphoria. "That positive reinforcement," says Schultz, "creates a special kind of attention dedicated to rewards. Rewards are what keep you coming back for more." That release of dopamine after an unexpected reward makes humans willing to take risks. Without it, explains Baylor's Read Montague, our early ancestors might have starved to death cowering in caves, and we modern investors would keep all our money under our mattresses.

The dopamine rush we get from long shots is why we play lotto, invest in IPOs, keep too much money in too few stocks and invest with active portfolio managers instead of index funds. It's why phrases like "the next Microsoft" or "the next Peter Lynch" make us whip out our wallets. Even if you've never experienced such a big score, you're wired to want them. Dopamine makes winning big feel vastly better than just winning--and the prospect of its euphoric effect prevents us from focusing on how small the odds of winning big actually are.

Another great article from the NY Times on the mind, this time from Elissa Ely. 

Psychiatry is a relatively safe profession, but it has a hazard that is not apparent at first glance: if you are in it long enough, there may be no one to talk to about your own problems.

Sometimes the situation is clear. During my training there was a formidable psychiatrist who disappeared periodically. Everyone knew she was being hospitalized for a recurrent manic psychosis, and that she would be back to intimidate the trainees as soon as medications had stabilized her.

Over this weekend a friend came up to me at a BBQ and jokingly said "...thanks Eraker, you jerk, your website said that I was nuts." My common response in this situation (which happens rather regularly) was 'what is nuts, why do you think that?' It turned out that they had answered questions on our computer adapative diagnostic test that lead to 3 positive diagnoses. This outcome is rather common and we covered these findings in a prior blog post where we found that the average user who completes our assessment receives about 3.8 diagnoses. Approximately 80% of people who complete the test receive 1 or more diagnoses. One additional point of clarification to add is that our self-assessment is configured to provide you with a lifetime-diagnosis, meaning, have any of your prior (or current) experiences met the DSM-IV criteria for a given condition. As an example, although you may have met the criteria for Major Depression at one point in the past, you may not meet the criteria for depression currently.  

When we compare Mindsite's epidemiological findings to the NCS-R, the most authoritative and recent study done on the incidence of mental health related issues in the US, the general population meets the criteria for a lifetime mental health condition in 1 out 2 individuals.  We have not done an academic clinical calibration study to assess Mindsite's diagnostic results with the traditional in-person survey approach employed by the NCS-R, however we have every reason to expect that the two tests will provide equivalent results. We feel strongly about this assertion, becasue we have worked closely with the authors of the NCS-R to develop Mindsite's online assessment.

Why would academic medicine find that 50% of the population experiences one or more mental health conditions in their lifetime while Mindsite is finding that number to be closer to 80%? Selection bias is the most likely explanation, meaning people who are more interested in mental health issues are more likely to take an online assessment such as Mindsite's.