National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) is a part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). It conducts and funds research on brain and nervous system disorders and has a budget of just over US$2.03 billion.[2] The mission of NINDS is "to reduce the burden of neurological disease—a burden borne by every age group, every segment of society, and people all over the world".[3] NINDS has established two major branches for research: an extramural branch that funds studies outside the NIH, and an intramural branch that funds research inside the NIH. Most of NINDS' budget goes to fund extramural research. NINDS' basic science research focuses on studies of the fundamental biology of the brain and nervous system, genetics, neurodegeneration, learning and memory, motor control, brain repair, and synapses. NINDS also funds clinical research related to diseases and disorders of the brain and nervous system, e.g. AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injury, stroke, and traumatic brain injury.
Abbreviation
NINDS
1950
U.S. government agency
Active
"NINDS conducts and supports research on brain and nervous system disorders."[1]
Walter J. Koroshetz, M.D.
Established in 1950 by the U. S. Congress as the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness to help handle the casualties of World War II, NINDS grew along with the NIH. During the 1950s and 1960s, NINDS and the NIH had strong Congressional support and received significant appropriations. However, this funding declined in 1968.
History[edit]
Impetus for creation[edit]
The NINDS was created in 1950 to study and treat the neurological and psychiatric casualties of World War II. Many service people had returned with serious brain injuries, nerve damage, and psychological trauma. According to one estimate, "neurologically disabled veterans in the postwar years accounted for about 25 percent of the patients in general hospitals and 10 percent of those in psychiatric hospitals".[4] In addition, 1.7 million American men had been rejected for military service due to a neuropsychiatric condition or learning disorder.[4]
NINDS was also created as part of an effort to "revive the almost extinct neurological field".[5] At the time, psychiatry and its focus on "emotional tensions due to interpersonal, social, and cultural maladjustments" held sway in US medicine, while neurology, with its focus on the inner workings of the brain, had fallen out of favor. During WWII, all of the administrative positions of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology held by the US armed services were filled by psychiatrists.[6] After the war, a survey by the Veteran's Administration of the members of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology found that 48 were neurologists and 456 were psychiatrists.[5]
In 1948, Abe B. Baker, chair of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Minnesota, formed the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) to give young neurologists a national organization to join.[5] However, sustained research in neurology was not possible without a national institute. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, vocal American Neurological Association (ANA) members testified before Congress, arguing that there needed to be such an institute. They articulated the arguments which had already been made on a smaller scale by citizens' groups for diseases such as multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, and blindness.[7]
Members of the research grants committee of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), which had been founded in 1949, contend that they also helped provide an impetus for the new institute, as when reviewing grant applications they saw a significant number of neurological projects and proposed a separate institute for them.[8]
Mission[edit]
The mission of the NINDS, as stated on their website, is "to reduce the burden of neurological disease—a burden borne by every age group, every segment of society, and people all over the world".[3] The NINDS notes that there are over 600 such disorders, with some of the common being stroke, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, and autism. In an effort to achieve their goal, the NINDS "supports and conducts research, both basic and clinical, on the normal and diseased nervous system, fosters the training of investigators in the basic and clinical neurosciences, and seeks better understanding, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of neurological disorders."[1]
Research[edit]
General[edit]
"Some important areas of NINDS basic research include: biology of the cells of the nervous system, brain and nervous system development, genetics of the brain, cognition and behavior, neurodegeneration, brain plasticity and repair, neural signaling, learning and memory, motor control and integration, sensory function, and neural channels, synapses, and circuits."[1]
"Some key areas of NINDS clinical research include: neurological consequences of AIDS, Alzheimer disease, brain tumors, developmental disorders, epilepsy, motor neuron diseases, muscular dystrophies, multiple sclerosis, neurogenetic disorders, pain, Parkinson disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, sleep disorders, spinal cord injury, stroke, and traumatic brain injury."[1]
"Most NINDS-funded research is conducted by extramural scientists in public and private institutions, such as universities, medical schools, and hospitals. NINDS intramural scientists, working in the Institute's laboratories, branches, and clinics, also conduct research in most of the major areas of neuroscience and on many of the most important and challenging neurological disorders. The Institute's interests, however, are not limited to NINDS programs. The Institute collaborates with other NIH components, as well as with other federal agencies, and with voluntary, professional and commercial organizations."[1]