Pioneering Mental Health Research at Sheba

Sheba Psychiatry, a major factor in Sheba Medical Center’s being recognized by Newsweek among the World's Best Specialized Hospitals and named the #7 World’s Best Hospital for 2026, has established itself as a leader in the diagnosis, treatment, and research of complex mental health conditions. The work of its clinical teams is guided by a simple premise: clinical excellence and active research have the greatest impact when they can reinforce each other.

That integration shapes everything the division does, from collaboration with national databases that enable research impossible to conduct elsewhere, to partnerships with pharmaceutical companies developing next-generation treatments for schizophrenia and depression. The result is a program whose influence extends well beyond its facility walls.

From Hypothesis to Clinical Implementation

LIV, an AI-powered diagnostic tool built at Sheba, embodies the division’s broader ambition to rethink how psychiatric care gets delivered and was born out of the fact that there simply aren’t enough psychiatrists to meet the demand. Sheba’s researchers set out to test whether AI could help close that gap.

The validation process took place in two stages: first, trained actors portrayed a range of psychiatric presentations, from depression to anxiety and PTSD, and were assessed independently by both LIV and experienced psychiatrists. The two groups arrived at matching diagnoses nine times out of ten. 

The second stage moved from simulation to reality: a project with the Ministry of Defense, conducted a study on 300 people suffering from depression due to military service. They were evaluated by both LIV and human clinicians and both, diagnostically agreed on PTSD cases reaching roughly 85 percent. Following this, Sheba was approached by the Ministry of Defense and received approval by AMAR (Medical Equipment Division), the regulatory unit within the Israeli Ministry of Health.

The tool has since moved from validated concept to active practice, now deployed within Sheba’s emergency department. Its path from early testing to real-world deployment, developed inside the ARC Center, points to something particular about how Sheba approaches innovation: building the infrastructure not just to develop new technology, but to ensure its utility before putting it in front of patients.

Where Research Opens New Treatment Paths

Beyond LIV, Sheba Psychiatry’s research portfolio reaches into some of psychiatry’s most difficult unsolved problems. In trauma care, ongoing work is developing MRI-based neurofeedback training that teaches the amygdala, the brain region responsible for feelings of anxiety, to regulate itself. In parallel, Sheba’s clinical researchers are exploring how technology embedded in the home can support recovery beyond clinical settings.

In schizophrenia and treatment-resistant depression, the division draws on national databases of a scale unavailable to most institutions worldwide, collaborating with pharmaceutical partners on next-generation drug development and mapping the genetic factors that explain why some patients respond to certain treatments and others do not. This includes research focused on anti-psychotic medications for schizophrenia, alongside ongoing work to understand the genetic influences behind mental health disorders more broadly.

Research and Innovation, Working in Tandem

Across LIV and Sheba Psychiatry’s broader research portfolio, one principle holds constant: research and clinical practice have the greatest impact when they operate in tandem. Discoveries made in the lab or through data analysis are tested in high-volume clinical workflows, and queries arising in patient care shape the direction of future research. This cycle is why pharmaceutical companies seeking to test experimental treatments look to Sheba as a partner, and why innovative tools like LIV can move from early hypothesis to clinical deployment in a matter of years rather than decades.

The results already extend well beyond Israel’s borders. LIV is moving from research into active clinical use. Neurofeedback, home-based monitoring, and genetic research into schizophrenia and treatment-resistant depression are advancing simultaneously, each pushing toward the same goal: solutions equal to the complexity of the conditions they aim to treat.

This commitment to integrating research with clinical care is one out of the many defining reasons Sheba has been named one of the world’s best hospitals by Newsweek for eight consecutive years.