Olivier Dumon on 'the next frontier in the business of science — improving mental health'

An Elsevier managing director writes about the importance of customized neuroscience tools in the Huffington Post

By Alison Bert     Posted on 11 July 2013

[caption id="attachment_25791" align="alignright" width="155"] Olivier Dumon[/caption]

In a new article for the Huffington Post, Oliver Dumon, Managing Director of Elsevier’s Academic & Government Research Markets group, writes about supporting scientists' efforts to address the pervasive challenges related to mental illness.

When faced with such seemingly overwhelming challenges, we turn, as we always do, to science to provide answers, and in this case the spotlight is on the rapidly expanding field of neuroscience. It has even bridged the gap into pop culture thanks to TV's Big Bang Theory and the growing popularity of Amy, Sheldon's neuroscientist girlfriend. The push to understand complex mental disorders that can so easily upset the delicate balance of our free society is one of research's greatest challenges. As much as we think we know, we also realize how little we know, and the search for time and money is often just as elusive as the answers we seek.

He goes on to emphasize the importance of developing search tools tailored to the specific needs of researchers in different fields. In neuroscience, he says, this means tools that will "provide access to the sophisticated integrated content that neuroscientists demand ... create a smarter interactive experience (and) enable vital collaboration within the scientific community ..."

He explains that after interviewing hundreds of neuroscientists in five countries, his team at Elsevier worked with a global researcher advisory board to identify the three most important search and discovery tasks facing neuroscientists:

• Finding foundational information
• Understanding what is known about brain region connectivity in the literature
  
• Finding experiments similar to the one employed in the user's own research

View the article in the Huffington Post. Find more of his articles in the Huffington Post Archive and on Elsevier Connect.