An end-of-year wrap-up from NAMI Montana. We do not have any financial ties to the organizations described in this post. Any unintentional scientific or analytical errors are our fault.

For nearly two decades, NAMI Montana has been making a simple, urgent case: our diagnostic and treatment system for mental health must become more precise. Too many people still live through a cycle of trial-and-error—trying medication after medication, therapy after therapy, intervention after intervention—without clear biological guidance about what will work best for their brain.

That’s why NAMI Montana has advocated for Precision Brain Health—a science-driven approach that treats brain and mental health conditions the way modern medicine treats cancer or cardiovascular disease: by using measurable biology and data to personalize care.

And 2025 felt different.

From our view, precision mental health has been advancing for years. But this year was a turning point, because momentum showed up in the places that matter most:

• CMS recognition and clearer regulatory pathways
• real-world reimbursement wins
• clinical translation inside major health systems
• Congressional action to scale research and care for veterans
• and breakthroughs in the underlying science that will inform next-generation diagnostics

We’re also honest about what this update is—and what it is not. Precision Brain Health is rapidly expanding, and many efforts deserve recognition. This wrap-up is written explicitly from NAMI Montana’s point of view, with our natural focus on the collaborators and initiatives we know closely: Stanford Precision Mental Health, Magnus Medical, Alto Neuroscience, the VA’s Hannon Precision Brain Health Initiative (including Total Brain Diagnostics), and SB 800 led by Senators Moran and King. We included one undeniably awesome effort that we don’t know the research team that well, but know that its lessons will be a critical part of the future of precision brain health.

Before we begin, we want to acknowledge the passing of precision brain health pioneer Dr. Nolan Williams MD, PhD. The present and future of precision brain health would not be the same without Dr. Williams. We are so grateful to him for all of his work.

The big picture: 2025 was the year precision mental health began to look like a “system,” not a set of isolated projects

There’s a reason NAMI Montana keeps returning to this idea. Precision mental health isn’t just one technology or one test—it is a new framework for care:

1. Measure what’s happening in the brain and body (biomarkers, imaging, EEG, cognition, digital signals)
2. Match people to the treatments most likely to help them
3. Track response early and adjust faster
4. Improve outcomes while reducing unnecessary suffering and wasted time

In other words: better answers sooner.

In 2025, we saw that framework strengthen across multiple fronts.

Magnus Medical: proof that “precision” can reach FDA clearance and reimbursement

One of the clearest signals that Precision Brain Health is becoming real-world medicine is this: payment systems are beginning to support precision treatments.

Magnus Medical’s SAINT® Depression Therapy is widely viewed as one of the strongest examples of precision neuromodulation in psychiatry—an approach that uses individualized targeting to deliver accelerated treatment, with the aim of producing rapid remission for people who have often tried everything else. Magnus describes SAINT as the first and only FDA-cleared rapid-remission therapy for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD).

But what made this year particularly meaningful was the reimbursement momentum.

In December 2025, Magnus announced that CMS finalized the 2026 Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) rule in a way that preserves the existing payment structure for SAINT, maintaining continuity for hospitals and hospital-based outpatient providers.

That matters. Because innovation alone does not improve lives at scale—access does. And access depends on reimbursement.

CMS also confirmed that SAINT’s Category III CPT codes (0889T–0892T) will retain their current APC assignments into 2026.

From NAMI Montana’s view, this is the story: precision mental health is no longer waiting at the edge of the healthcare system. It is pushing into the center.

And in Montana specifically, we’ve been encouraged to see Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana add SAINT TMS to its reimbursable services— recognizing the value of bringing modern brain-based treatments into real clinical pathways.

Alto Neuroscience: precision neuroscience aimed at one of the most difficult unmet needs—cognitive impairment in schizophrenia

If depression care is often a story of insufficient response, schizophrenia care is often a story of profound unmet need—especially when it comes to cognition.

Cognitive impairment associated with schizophrenia (CIAS) is not an “extra symptom.” It’s often the difference between being able to work, learn, manage daily life, maintain relationships, and live independently—or not.

And critically: there are currently no approved treatments for CIAS.

That’s why Alto’s progress this year was so significant.

In October 2025, Alto announced that the FDA granted Fast Track designation to ALTO-101 for CIAS, highlighting both the seriousness of the condition and the unmet need.

Fast Track isn’t a marketing label. It’s a regulatory mechanism intended to speed development and review for treatments addressing serious conditions.

Alto describes itself as building a Precision Psychiatry Platform™, using EEG, neurocognitive assessments, wearable data, and other measures to identify which patients are most likely to respond to specific interventions.

We find this approach deeply aligned with the vision behind Precision Brain Health: don’t just develop new treatments—develop the tools to match the right treatment to the right person.

And we are watching closely. NAMI Montana is hopeful that Alto’s work—especially their effort to address cognition in schizophrenia—could help families around the world. We are particularly eager for their expected results in 2026, which could mark a major step in improving quality of life for people living with schizophrenia and the people who love them.

Stanford Center for Precision Mental Health: turning precision depression care into a clinical reality

Academic research is essential, but what changes medicine is translation—science that becomes actual clinical practice.

Stanford’s Center for Precision Mental Health (PMHW) continues to be one of the most visible and structured efforts to bring that translation to life.

In their 2025 Annual Report, Stanford’s director, Dr. Leanne Williams, describes a clear shift from theory to action: the center has defined and validated six brain-based biotypes of depression tied to circuit dysfunction, and reports this can double the likelihood of successful treatment for many patients.

Further, PMHW partnered with Stanford Healthcare to launch the Stanford Precision Psychiatry Clinic, bringing neuroimaging and computational neuroscience directly into patient care.

This is exactly the kind of milestone NAMI Montana has been advocating toward: precision mental health not as a research goal, but as a standard of care.

PMHW also emphasized its momentum in combining psychiatry, neuroscience, and AI—highlighted through its fifth annual symposium (“Bridging Psychiatry, Neuroscience & AI”).

From our perspective, this is an important cultural shift inside medicine: leaders in psychiatry are increasingly describing mental health care as an area ready for a data-driven “precision revolution,” rather than a field locked permanently in symptom-based categories.

The VA’s Hannon Precision Brain Health Initiative and Total Brain Diagnostics: precision care for veterans is being built in the real world

Veterans have long carried a disproportionate burden of brain and mental health challenges—PTSD, depression, traumatic brain injury, chronic cognitive and emotional symptoms, and increasingly recognized effects from repetitive low-level blast exposure.

This year, we saw meaningful policy momentum that directly supports veterans through a precision framework.

The VA’s Scott Hannon Initiative for Precision Mental Health (SHIPMH) was launched to identify and validate brain and mental health biomarkers among veterans, improve data sharing, and—most importantly—translate research findings into clinical care.

The VA explicitly describes building integrated systems that combine multiple data streams (including efforts like LIMBIC-CENC and TRACTS) with the goal of developing machine learning models to deliver a “complete 360° diagnostic of brain health.”

That’s not just research. That’s the architecture of precision care.

At the same time, the Total Brain Diagnostics (TBD) effort—part of this broader initiative—continued practical progress in FY26 Q1, including work on imaging harmonization, paper development, and expanding the blast-related research agenda.

From NAMI Montana’s perspective, this matters because it shows what the future of mental health care can look like when it is taken seriously as a public health and national service priority: organized data infrastructure, coordinated research, and a pathway to translation.

SB 800: the Precision Brain Health Research Act of 2025—Congress begins scaling precision brain health

One of the strongest signals that this was a “momentum year” is that precision brain health moved further into federal legislation.

Senators Jerry Moran and Angus King introduced S. 800, formally titled the Precision Brain Health Research Act of 2025.

The bill modifies the VA’s Precision Medicine for Veterans Initiative to explicitly include repetitive low-level blast exposure, dementia, and other brain and mental health conditions.

It also pushes for a VA–Department of Defense data-sharing partnership, stored in an open platform, and requires DoD to supply relevant data across the armed forces and related systems.

Importantly, the bill authorizes $5 million per year from FY2025 through FY2034 to carry out the initiative.

In a public-facing explanation, the California American Legion framed the bill as a response to the long-term mental and cognitive effects of repetitive low-level blasts and described how the legislation would expand the existing Hannon initiative and direct research and coordination with the National Academies.

From NAMI Montana’s point of view, the message is clear: Precision Brain Health is now being treated as a national responsibility—especially for veterans. We want to thank everyone involved with this effort including Emily Blair Rubright who NAMI Montana worked with to author the legislation.

The genetics breakthrough: a global step toward biologically grounded diagnosis

Even though NAMI Montana does not have relationships with any of the researchers in the the major international genetics effort highlighted this year, we want to name it because it represents a critical facet in the foundation of precision diagnostics.

In December 2025, a major analysis reported five underlying genomic factors across 14 psychiatric disorders, based on DNA data from more than 1 million individuals with diagnoses and 5 million without diagnoses, published in Nature.

The study’s findings reinforce what many clinicians and families already experience: conditions we label as separate in the DSM often share deep biological roots. The research reported that 70% of the genetic signal associated with schizophrenia is also associated with bipolar disorder, challenging historical diagnostic boundaries.

Researchers described this as a step toward strategies that might target shared biological processes rather than forcing people into rigid categorical boxes.

This matters because precision brain health ultimately depends on moving beyond surface-level symptom categories toward an understanding of the brain as biology—complex, measurable, and deeply individualized.

Why NAMI Montana believes 2025 was a critical momentum year

When we step back, this year gave us something advocates rarely get all at once: a visible alignment of progress across the full pipeline:

• Science advancing toward biologically grounded understanding
• Clinical systems beginning to operationalize precision care
• Regulators recognizing precision pathways and unmet needs
• Payers maintaining and stabilizing reimbursement for breakthrough treatments
• Policy expanding and funding precision brain health for veterans

This is the bridge from innovation to impact.

The NAMI Montana perspective: precision is not a luxury—it’s a necessity

We want to say this plainly.

Precision Brain Health is not just a scientific advancement in mental health care. It’s life for death.

When people spend years trying treatments that don’t work, the cost is not just financial—it is human: lost time, lost hope, lost opportunities, and sometimes lost lives.

The goal is not perfection. The goal is improvement:

• faster remission
• fewer failed trials
• fewer side effects
• better long-term outcomes
• and a diagnostic system that reflects the reality of brain biology

That’s why NAMI Montana has advocated for this for so long, and why the Hannon Precision Brain Health Initiative remains one of the most meaningful success stories we’ve been part of.

Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond

We enter the next year encouraged and realistic.

Encouraged because 2025 showed that precision brain health is becoming infrastructure—clinics, codes, policies, and platforms.

Realistic because we know the work is still early. Precision mental health needs:

• more diverse datasets
• rigorous validation
• transparent clinical tools
• equitable access
• and safeguards so these technologies serve people, not institutions

But the direction is clear.

From NAMI Montana’s view, Precision Brain Health is no longer a future concept. It is becoming the path forward—and this year, the momentum became undeniable.

Citations

Alto Neuroscience website

American Legion, Department of California Blog

Harvard Gazette – “New Research Finds 5 Genetic Signatures Shared by 14 Psychiatric Disorders.”

Magnus Medical Website

SB 800 Text

Stanford Center for Precision Mental Health and Wellness website

VA Launches Scott Hannon Initiative for Precision Mental Health