Computational psychiatry holds promise for basic research and clinical practice in safeguarding mental health. In this Comment, we discuss why China needs computational psychiatry, why its development in China will benefit the field globally, and the challenges of promoting computational psychiatry in China and how to tackle them.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$119.00 per year
only $9.92 per issue
Rent or buy this article
Prices vary by article type
from$1.95
to$39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References
Huang, Y. et al. Lancet Psychiatry 6, 211–224 (2019).
Li, F. et al. J. Child Psychol. Psychiatry 63, 34–46 (2022).
Zhao, Y.-J. et al. PLoS Comput. Biol. 17, e1009544 (2021).
Crawley, D. et al. PLoS Biol. 18, e3000908 (2020).
Chen, J. et al. Biol. Psychiatry 87, 282–293 (2020).
Chen, J. et al. Biol. Psychiatry 89, 308–319 (2021).
Huys, Q. J. M., Maia, T. V. & Frank, M. J. Nat. Neurosci. 19, 404–413 (2016).
Zhang, D. et al. Pattern Recognit. 110, 107562 (2021).
Xinhua. Across China: AI chatbot provides mental-health support. xinhuanet.com, https://go.nature.com/3KFdhJh (16 July 2021).
Neuromatch Academy (NMA). Trends Cogn. Sci. 25, 535–538 (2021).
brainhack. 1st computational psychiatry hack @ China 2021. brainhack.org, https://go.nature.com/3IOGlNG (29 August 2021).
Ferrante, M. et al. Mol. Psychiatry 24, 479–483 (2019).
National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China. Main Responsibilities of the National Center for Mental Health and Mental Health Prevention and Control [in Chinese], https://go.nature.com/3HPAeqY (15 March 2021).
Dattani, S., Ritchie, H. & Roser, M. Mental health. Our World in Data, https://ourworldindata.org/mental-health (August 2021).
Acknowledgements
X.H. is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 31922089, 321791056), General Research Fund (no. 17601318) of Hong Kong Research Grants Council, Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province of China (no. 2019A050510048) and Key Realm R&D Program of Guangzhou (no. 20200703005). L.Z. was partially supported by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF VRG13-007) and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF-M3166). R.-Y.Z. was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (32100901), Shanghai Pujiang programme (21PJ1407800), Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (21ZR1434700), the Research Project of Shanghai Science and Technology Commission (20dz2260300) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities. Y.L. was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82001445). R.C.K.C was supported by the Jiangsu Provincial Key Research and Development Program (BE2020661), Chinese Academy of Sciences Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, and the Philip K. H. Wong Foundation. J.C. was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2021YFC2502200).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Supplementary information
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Geng, H., Chen, J., Chuan-Peng, H. et al. Promoting computational psychiatry in China. Nat Hum Behav 6, 615–617 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01328-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01328-4
This article is cited by
-
Examining mental disorders with computational neuroscience
Nature Reviews Psychology (2022)