NIMHANS Bengaluru, the Rohini Nilekani Centre for Brain and Mind, and the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS-TIFR) have launched CALM-Brain, India's first digital repository of clinical, neuroimaging, behavioral, genetic, and other datasets for five major psychiatric disorders: addiction, bipolar disorder, dementia, obsessive compulsive disorder, and schizophrenia. The first phase opened on 25 March 2026, with continued media coverage and researcher outreach into April.
CALM-Brain is India's first digital data repository on major psychiatric disorders
India is now home to CALM-Brain, the country's first digital repository of clinical, neuroimaging, behavioral, genetic, and other datasets for five major psychiatric disorders
Published May 6, 2026 · 1 min read
The platform is designed to be searchable, secure, and useful to qualified researchers across India and globally, which addresses a long-standing gap in Indian mental health science. Until now, much of the foundational research on psychiatric disorders has relied on Western datasets, with limited representation of Indian genetic, social, and clinical contexts. The Print's reporting notes that this is expected to shape future drug development and intervention design more accurately for Indian populations.
CALM-Brain was jointly funded by the government's Department of Biotechnology and the Pratiksha Trust, the philanthropic vehicle led by Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan and Sudha Gopalakrishnan.The Hans India describes the platform as a world-class scientific resource that establishes India in the global mental health research conversation in a way that has been overdue
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