Doctors, scientists, and mental health researchers from around the world will be able to access this data repository, which has already studied over 2,000 Indian participants and 900 families.<\/p>\n
This is a landmark moment for everyone involved. This database is now set to become the foundation for a comprehensive repository for mental health efforts across the country.<\/p>\n
According to neuroscientists, this centralised dataset, which will eventually become open-source, will also provide a unique representation of the Indian population in global research on mental health and its treatments.<\/p>\n
Dr Pratima Murthy, former director of\u00a0NIMHANS, who is also closely involved with the project,\u00a0said that most of the current studies on mental health are centred around the western population. This is when factors such as a patient\u2019s ethnicity, local weather conditions, and social exposure play a significant role in how their symptoms unfold and how their treatments affect them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen so many of a patient\u2019s immediate factors impact their condition and their treatment, it becomes important that they also have ample representation. The Asian population, especially the Indian population, is not studied well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The data collection was done on four levels\u2014from patients with one or multiple psychiatric disorders, family members of the patients with the same or another form of psychiatric disorder, a healthy member of the family, and unrelated healthy members of society.<\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/golconda-and-char-minar-3.jpg\")
NIMHANS building in Bengaluru. In March, NIMHANS, along with the Rohini Nilekani Centre for Brain and Mind and the National Centre for Biological Sciences-TIFR, launched the first phase of CALM-Brain. This is a one-of-a-kind digital repository of data on brain structure and function for five major psychiatric disorders. | Soumya Pillai | ThePrint\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a landmark initiative in the field of mental health research in India. We will get a deep insight into how psychological illnesses manifest particularly in the Indian populations. This is significant for future Indian studies,\u201d Dr Janardhan Reddy, a senior psychiatrist who is also coordinating the project for CBM-NIMHANS, told ThePrint.<\/p>\n
The CALM-Brain project began in 2015 with the aim of creating a deeper understanding of psychiatric disorders among the Indian population.<\/p>\n
Also read:\u00a0Arctus Aerospace has one mission\u2014End India\u2019s reliance on foreign players in earth observation<\/a><\/p>\n Taboo around mental health<\/p>\n When a 30-year-old native of Bihar first moved to India\u2019s tech capital, Bengaluru, eight years ago, he had big dreams. His life was planned\u2014a well-paying job already in hand, a car in another year and eventually a house and a family.<\/p>\n But just two years in the city, and his big dreams were replaced by long work hours and high stress. Not having friends or family in the city only made things worse.<\/p>\n The final blow came in 2021.<\/p>\n His mother suddenly passed away from Covid-19 in his village, and he was stuck hundreds of kilometres away, unable to bid a final goodbye in-person.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s when the first episode of depression and hallucinations began,\u201d he said, requesting anonymity.<\/p>\n Almost a year later, he was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a condition where a patient starts displaying symptoms of both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.<\/p>\n \u201cIt took me a really long time to acknowledge that something could be wrong with me. I am still not comfortable sharing my condition with my entire family. It would probably be different if it were a physical ailment, but there is still a great deal of stigma attached to mental health ailments,\u201d\u00a0the NIMHANS patient, who participated in the study told ThePrint.<\/p>\n Dr Reddy says that convincing patients and their families to participate in their surveys was the most difficult part.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if patients agreed, getting their family members, especially healthy ones, was a task,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe issue is that patients in a mental health survey do not gain anything. At least in a drug trial, there is a possibility of a certain health outcome. Here, there is no such incentive. You need to convince them that this is for a greater cause and just hope that they come on board.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2016, the team from\u00a0NIMHANS\u00a0and NCBS finally started the process of gathering phase-wise patient data, as part of the Accelerator Programme for Discovery in Brain Disorders Using Stem Cells, or the ADBS Project.<\/p>\n This project was jointly funded by the government\u2019s Department of Biotechnology and the Pratiksha Trust\u2014a philanthropic initiative led by Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan and Sudha Gopalakrishnan, focusing on supporting brain research, education, and scientific innovation in India.<\/p>\n CALM-Brain currently contains data from over 2,000 participants, representing nearly 900 families.<\/p>\n A 2025 analysis conducted by scientists from King\u2019s College London, \u2018Exploring the world for longitudinal datasets: data resources for transformative mental health research\u2019 highlighted that an ideal longitudinal mental health study should have at least 8000 participants at the inception stage, should have collected data or has the potential for collecting data from participants aged 14 to 30 years, has collected data for about three years in the initial phase and has planned to contact the participants to collect new data.<\/p>\n Global mental health studies, including the 2025 Global Flourishing Study carried out by Harvard University, followed 200,000 participants from 22 countries. The Indian study, which includes 2000 patients and their families, exceeds this recommended mark of 8000 participants.<\/p>\n \n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/golconda-and-char-minar-1.jpg\")
The core team of scientists at NIMHANS during the inauguration if the CALM-Brain study. Global mental health studies, including the 2025 Global Flourishing Study carried out by Harvard University, followed 200,000 participants from 22 countries. The Indian study, which includes 2000 patients and their families, exceeds this recommended mark of 8000 participants.\n<\/p>\n