KAIST Launches New Platform for Mental Health Support

By Integrative Health Staff 

Earlier this month, KAIST announced the official launch of the KAIST Mind Care & Growth Center (KMCG), a novel integrated platform that enhances mental health support for students and faculty while advancing digital mental health research. KAIST also hosted the international symposium, Human Behavior and Mental Health, which attracted strong interest from both academic and public audiences, with attendance exceeding 300 KAIST faculty members, researchers, students, and global digital health experts. This reflects the increasing need for innovative mental health frameworks to address challenges in the era of artificial intelligence (AI). 

“In an era where artificial intelligence is replacing even high-level human intellectual labor, our greatest concern is not technological deficiency, but the potential erosion of human-centered values and culture,” said Kwang Hyung Lee, president of KAIST, in a press release. “Technology must remain a tool guided by human wisdom and philosophy — not the other way around.” 

The KMCG brings together psychological counseling, psychiatric care, and crisis intervention services that were previously spread across campus by expanding and restructuring the existing student counseling center. By centralizing these resources, it simplifies access to care and offers a more coordinated, seamless, and consistent support system in one location.  

More than a traditional counseling center, the KMCG functions as a living laboratory that combines hands-on mental health care with KAIST’s research expertise. Researchers in AI, neuroscience, industrial design, digital humanities, mathematics, and computer science work together to develop and assess innovative mental health solutions. These collaborative efforts enable the delivery of evidence-based support to students while generating real-world insights that inform ongoing research and service improvements. 

The KMCG is also conducting research on the impact of generative AI on psychiatric practice, published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (DOI: 10.2196/96556). The study found that generative AI has both benefits and detriments. Positive influences include helping users organize emotions, encouraging self-care, and expanding treatment access, and negative influences include overdependence, the reinforcement of distorted beliefs, and the possibility of harmful outcomes based on the patient’s level of vulnerability and the context in which the AI is used.  

“A healthy mind is the foundation for achieving outstanding research,” said Dooyoung Jung, director of the KMCG, in the same press release. “We will develop the Mind Care & Growth Center into a platform that leads mental health solutions for universities across Korea.”