Address
NIMH Office of Communications
6001 Executive Blvd.
Bethesda, MD 20892-9663
United StatesDescription
The National Institute of Mental Health
(NIMH) is one of 27 components of the National Institutes of Health
(NIH), the Federal government's principal biomedical and behavioral
research agency. NIH is part of the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services.
Mission
The NIMH mission is to reduce the burden of
mental illness and behavioral disorders through research on mind,
brain, and behavior. This public health mandate demands that we
harness powerful scientific tools to achieve better understanding,
treatment, and eventually, prevention of these disabling conditions
that affect millions of Americans. To fulfill its mission, the
Institute conducts research on mental disorders and the underlying
basic science of brain and behavior; supports research on these
topics at universities and hospitals around the United States;
collects, analyzes, and disseminates information on the causes,
occurrence, and treatment of mental illnesses; supports the
training of more than 1,000 scientists to carry out basic and
clinical research; and communicates information to scientists, the
public, the news media, and primary care and mental health
professionals about mental illnesses, the brain, behavior, mental
health, and opportunities and advances in research in these
areas.
Technology Disciplines
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6
Laboratory of Brain and Cognition (LBC)
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The Laboratory of Brain and Cognition (LBC) is a branch of the Division of Intramural Research Programs ( DIRP ) at the National Institute of Mental Health ( NIMH ). The NIMH is part of the National Institutes of Health ( NIH ), the principal biomedical and behavioral research agency of the United States Government. NIH is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ( DHHS ). The LBC consists of four Sections, headed by Dr. Leslie G. Ungerleider (Section on Neurocircuitry), Dr. Alex Martin (Section on Cognitive Neuropsychology), Dr. Peter A. Bandettini (Section on Functional Imaging Methods), and Dr. Chris I. Baker (Section on Learning and Plasticity), with Dr. Ungerleider as the Laboratory Chief. The LBC is a highly interactive and collegial environment, in which collaborations within and across the Sections are encouraged. There are three main themes of research in the LBC: Physiology and Behavior of Nonhuman Primates - Dr. Ungerleider's Section has long been devoted to establishing the links between neural structure and cognitive function, especially in the visual modality. Her early work was devoted to anatomical tracing techniques in macaque monkeys. By the mid-1990s, she and others had succeeded in mapping much of the monkey extrastriate visual cortex and had outlined some of the major functional systems. With the advent of functional brain imaging in humans, Dr. Ungerleider began the study of human cortex, using first PET and then fMRI. Monkey work has guided many of her hypotheses in the human imaging studies. Dr. Ungerleider's monkey program includes monkey fMRI and electrophysiological studies in order to carry on parallel studies in humans and monkeys for which her lab is recognized. Human Cognitive Neuroscience and Functional Brain Imaging - Four Sections in the LBC, headed by Drs. Ungerleider (sNC), Martin (sCNP), Bandettini (sFIM), and Baker (sLP) plan and conduct research on the functional organization of the human brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The primary focus is on the visual modality as a model system for investigating perception, attention, learning, memory, decision-making, and the representation of semantic knowledge. Functional brain imaging studies are motivated by both the anatomy and physiology of the visual system in non-human primates and cognitive impairments produced by focal brain lesions in humans, as well as by models from cognitive science. Functional Imaging Methods - The long-term research goal of Dr. Bandettini's Section is the development and implementation of advanced fMRI methods towards an increased understanding of the functional organization and physiology of the human brain, and ultimately increased clinical utility. A major focus has been to understand the relationship between neuronal activity and fMRI signal changes, and to explore new methods for extraction of neuronal information from resting and active fMRI time series. sFIM research has been balanced across the four themes of methodology, technology, interpretation, and applications. In recent years, this focus has shifted towards more interpretative and methodological advancements.
Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Regulation
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This Laboratory plans and conducts research on the anatomical, cellular, physiological, pharmacological, biochemical, and molecular bases of the expression and regulation of brain functions.
Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology (LMCN)
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Neurotransmitters such as dopamine and glutamate are rapidly removed from the synaptic cleft after release, primarily through the actions of neurotransmitter transporters. These integral membrane proteins function to clear neurotransmitters that have been released from both synaptic and extrasynaptic sites. This uptake process is not only essential for the termination of neurotransmission, but also serves to reestablish the intracellular levels of the neurotransmitters for subsequent release. Neurotransmitter transporters are secondary active transporters. By coupling the movement of Na + ions down their electrochemical gradient, these carriers can transport their specific substrates against an energy barrier into the cell. In addition to their transport function, some of these carriers also act as selective anion channels. Using electrophysiological, cell biological, molecular genetic and biochemical techniques combined with transgenic animal models, our laboratory investigates the structure-function relationships, pharmacology, cellular regulation and molecular interactions of the members of the SLC1 and the SLC6 families. The SLC1 family encompasses the five subtypes of the excitatory amino acid transporters (EAATs), and the SLC6 family includes the Na +-dependent transporters for dopamine, serotonin and noradrenaline, also known as the biogenic amine transporters. These two families of neurotransmitter transporters have been implicated in a number of neuropsychiatric conditions including Parkinson's Disease, primary mood disorders, drug addiction, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and attention deficit hyperactivity disorders (ADHD, ADD). In addition, biogenic amine neurotransmitter transporters are the primary targets for therapeutic antidepressants known as reuptake inhibitors, for psychostimulants such as cocaine and amphetamines and for methylphenidate, which is used to treat ADHD. Thus, our aim to understand the function and regulation of these multifunctional CNS transporters is ultimately linked to the NIMH mission of providing improved prevention, diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses.
Laboratory of Neuropsychology (LN)
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The Laboratory of Neuropsychology conducts basic research on brain mechanisms of perception, attention, memory, emotion, motivation, and motor function. The Laboratory of Neuropsychology is part of the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Mental Health. It is located on the main campus of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD, USA.
Section on the Neurobiology and Treatment of Mood Disorders (SNMD)
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The major goal of the SNMD is to conduct therapeutic studies on treatment-resistant depression, with a more recent extension to patients with suicidal ideation and behavior. The major focus of our clinical research is treatment-resistant depression. SNMD is housed in the Mood Disorders Research Unit, 7SE north of the NIH Clinical Center, a state-of-the art facility which currently has 12 inpatient beds designated for patients with mood disorders of which Dr. Zarate is the Unit Chief. Clinical staffing includes a 24 hour, 365 day on-call psychiatrist, experienced nurse clinicians, etc. Our ability to study patients for long periods of time, over nights and weekends in both the drug free as well as post-treatment states provides a unique opportunity for comprehensive evaluation that would not be possible in the extramural world. The program attempts to identify reasons for and ameliorate the high failure rate in recent pharmacologic trials of mood disorders including patient heterogeneity, inadequate diagnostic and response biomarkers, incorrect dose range, high placebo response rates, inadequate trial designs, patient and investigator expectation biases, lack of target engagement, and a host of operational issues. By avoiding many of these situations, we can improve the feasibility and acceptability by advancing early proof-of-concept clinical trials designs that can be subsequently translated to our extramural partners for larger effectiveness and efficacy studies. In addition to collaborative efforts designed to cover the full range of biologic pathways underlying mood disorders, we have focused our research on treatment-resistant depression in two major research areas: (1) neuroimaging; and (2) biomarkers of mood disorders and treatment response. The NIMH DIRP Cores have also provided an ideal source of expertise in our neuroimaging studies. Our research has also benefited enormously from both the NIH Clinical Center facilities and the DIRP CORE facilities (e.g., sMRI, fMRI, PET, PSG, MEG, MRS, etc).
The Experimental Therapeutics and Pathophysiology Branch (ETPB)
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The overarching goals of the current (ETPB) are: (1) to provide administrative support for our Section (SNMD); (2) to maintain a common screening program for the Division of Intramural Research Program (DIRP) studies on mood and anxiety disorders; and (3) to support clinical and research training. The Screening Program (01-M-0254) provides oversight, training, and quality control of administration of a range of structured diagnostic and dimensional measures of psychopathology. Aside from extensive clinical measures, the major data components that are centralized in the program include: (1) CTDB-Clinical trials database; (2) BioBNK that contains a diverse set of biologic measures; and (3) MAP-R (Mood and Anxiety Disorders Repository protocol) of neuroimaging data. The clinical measures collected include comprehensive diagnostic interviews including history of suicide attempts and ideation, stress/trauma, sleep problems, temperament, psychosis, medical conditions, as well as dimensional measures of the core features of mood and related disorders including positive and negative affect, arousal/regulatory systems and cognitive function.
The following link will direct you to all available funding opportunities.
Lab Representatives
