The mind-brain gap and the neuroscience-psychiatry gap.

A problem underlying the mind brain gap is the complex integration among the disciplines involved in it: neurosciences, clinical psychiatry and psychology, and philosophy of science. Research in neurosciences and clinical psychiatry requires a positioning in relation to some conceptual/philosophical aspects. These are related to the models of interrelationship of the brain and the mind, to explanatory approaches in psychiatry, and to conceptual issues such as dimensionality versus categories, symptoms versus disorders, and neurobiological correlates versus clinical determination of mental disorder. In this article, we try to address some of these issues that, if taken into account, could reduce the gap between psychiatrists and neuroscientists and turn the research in this area more profitable.