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AUTHORs

E. Fuller Torrey, M.D., Treatment Advocacy Center, Arlington, Va. 
Mary T. Zdanowicz, J.D., Treatment Advocacy Center, Arlington, Va. 
Sidney M. Wolfe, M.D., Public Citizen Health Research Group, Washington, D.C. 
Peter G. Lurie, M.D., M.P.H., Public Citizen Health Research Group, Washington, D.C. 
Irving I. Gottesman, Ph.D., Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, University of Minnesota 
John M. Davis, M.D., Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois

PRINTABLE PDF VERSION OF THIS REPORT (45 pages)

TABLE OF CONTENTS  

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Dr. Barbara Zain for her analysis of the basic neuroscience awards. Jonathan Stanley, Alicia Aebersold, and D.J. Jaffe, among others, contributed useful suggestions. We also thank the anonymous researchers who contributed their unfunded NIMH research grant applications for inclusion in our study.

Contents

Executive Summary 

Introduction 

I. The Magnitude of the Problem of Serious Mental Illnesses 

A. Numbers of Affected Persons

B. Costs

C. Humanitarian Considerations

II. NIMH's Research Portfolio: Results of the 2002 Survey 

A. Allocation of NIMH Research Awards to Serious Mental Illnesses, 1997 and 2002 

B. Number of Clinically Relevant Research Awards to Serious Mental Illnesses, 1997 and 2002 

C. Intramural Research Program, 1997 and 2002 

D. Research Expenditures by Disease: Serious Mental Illnesses Compared to Other Diseases 

E. Identification of Rejected Research Proposals, 1997 to 2002

F. Identification of NIMH-Funded Research Proposals That Could Have Been Assigned to the National Science Foundation (NSF) 

III. NIMH's Awareness of Its Problem and Attempts To Correct It 

IV. Why Does NIMH Do So Little Research on Serious Mental Illnesses? 

A. The institutional culture of NIMH has never emphasized serious mental illnesses as its core mission, except when NIMH is testifying before Congress.

B. Leadership and staff have rarely viewed serious mental illnesses as a priority.

C. NIMH review committees include few individuals with major interests or expertise in serious mental illnesses.

D. The organization of NIMH de-emphasizes serious mental illnesses.

E. It is easier to study rats, pigeons, and adolescent romantic relationships than to study individuals with serious mental illnesses.

F. The American Psychological Society and American Psychological Association exert strong influence on the allocation of NIMH research resources.

G. There is virtually no oversight or public advocacy to encourage NIMH to focus research attention on serious mental illnesses.

V. A Five-Year Report Card: What Were the Effects of Doubling NIMH's Budget? 

VI. Recommendations 

 

TABLES

Table 1. Number of NIMH Research Awards Related to Serious Mental Illnesses, 1997 and 2002 

Table 2. Number of NIMH Research Awards That Were Clinically Relevant to Serious Mental Illnesses, 1997 and 2002 

Table 3. NIH Research Expenditure By Disease, 1999 

 

APPENDIXES

Appendix A: A Comparison of Selected NIMH Research Proposals, Unfunded and Funded, 1997 to 2002 

Appendix B: Methods 

Appendix C: How To Access Information on NIMH-Funded Research Awards 

 

NIMH Research Vignettes 

NIMH and Sleep 

NIMH Is Doing the Work of the National Cancer Institute 

NIMH and Romance 

NIMH and Human Behavior 

Long-Term Funding 

Happiness Is Getting an NIMH Research Grant To Study Happiness 

NIMH and Birds

 

Footnotes

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has primary responsibility for funding research on serious mental illnesses, defined as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism, and severe forms of depression, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. This report is the third evaluation of NIMH’s performance in this task. It covers the period 1997 to 2002, during which time NIMH’s budget doubled from $661 million to $1.3 billion.

I.    The Problem 

• There are approximately 11.6 million adults in the United States who have a serious mental illness in a one-year period. Of these, 5.6 million have a severe and persistent form of mental illness.

• Individuals with a serious mental illness make up one-third of the homeless population and 5 to 7 percent of the jail and prison population. At any given time, there are approximately one-quarter of a million seriously mentally ill people who are homeless or incarcerated.

• Individuals with a serious mental illness account for 58 percent of total direct costs for all mental illnesses. This amount includes over 40 billion federal dollars spent under Medicaid, Medicare, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) and is a major reason for the rapid increase in costs of these programs.

II.   NIMH’s Response to the Problem

• In 2002, 28.5 percent of NIMH awards went to research on serious mental illnesses. These illnesses account for 58 percent of the total costs of all mental illnesses.

• Only 5.8 percent of all NIMH awards went to clinically relevant research on serious mental illnesses. “Clinically relevant” means reasonably likely to improve the treatment and quality of life for individuals presently affected.

• Between 1997 and 2002, the proportion of NIMH research awards for all aspects of serious mental illnesses decreased by 11 percent (from 32.1 to 28.5 percent). For clinically relevant aspects of serious mental illnesses, it decreased by 22 percent (from 7.4 to 5.8 percent).

• During those same years, NIMH rejected for funding many reasonable research proposals on serious mental illnesses and funded much research that had no relationship to any mental illness. For example, NIMH rejected funding for a treatment trial for schizophrenia but funded research on how people think in Papua New Guinea; rejected funding for research on bipolar disorder in children but funded research on self-esteem in college students; and rejected funding for research on the causes of postpartum depression but funded research on the hearing mechanism of crickets, as detailed in Appendix A.

• NIMH’s failure to fund sufficient research on serious mental illnesses is the main reason why research on these illnesses is so grossly underfunded compared to other diseases. For example, per person affected, for every $1 NIMH spent in 1999 for research on bipolar disorder, NIH spent over $12 for research on cervical cancer. For every $1 NIMH spent for research on depression, NIH spent almost $15 for research on multiple sclerosis. For every $1 NIMH spent for research on schizophrenia, NIH spent $30 on research for HIV/AIDS.

• Research on serious mental disorders is not an important part of the NIMH research portfolio.

• During the five-year period of doubling of the NIMH budget, a period that could have been used by NIMH to correct its traditional neglect of research on serious mental illnesses, the proportion of NIMH research awards allocated to serious mental illnesses actually decreased, rather than staying the same or increasing.

III.  The Solution

• Congress should hold hearings to establish a minimum percentage of the NIMH budget that must be spent for research on serious mental illnesses.

• NIMH should be required to report to Congress annually how much it is spending on each serious mental illness.

• The Government Accounting Office should evaluate the NIMH research portfolio vis-à-vis the discrepancy between the allocation of NIMH resources and the public’s needs.

• Behavioral research on diseases is important, and all NIH institutes are supposed to fund behavioral research on diseases for which they have primary responsibility. NIMH should therefore support behavioral research for psychiatric disorders but not for other diseases.

• Basic neuroscience research is also important. However, allocation of responsibility for such research needs to be better coordinated between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and various NIH institutes, including NIMH.

INTRODUCTION

In 1999, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) and the NAMI Research Institute published A Mission Forgotten: The Failure of the National Institute of Mental Health To Do Sufficient Research on Severe Mental Illness.[1] It reported that only 33.2 percent of NIMH’s 1997 research awards had any relevance for serious mental disorders and only 7.8 percent were directed to clinical and treatment aspects of these disorders. The report recommended that serious mental illnesses “should receive at least two-thirds of NIMH’s research resources in any given year” and that “all new funds received from Congress should be invested in these diseases until a more equitable balance is achieved.”

In 2000, the Treatment Advocacy Center issued a follow-up report, Missions Impossible: The Ongoing Failure of NIMH To Support Sufficient Research on Severe Mental Disorders.[2] It examined newly funded NIMH research awards in 1999 and concluded that, compared to 1997, “no improvement is seen in the percentage of those related to severe mental disorders.”

The present report, the third in an ongoing effort to monitor NIMH research, analyzes NIMH research awards for FY2002. During the five-year interval between our initial report, for FY1997, and the present report, the budget of NIMH doubled, from $661 million in 1997 to $1.3 billion in 2002. This was a very positive step, supported by Senator Pete Domenici, the late Senator Paul Wellstone, and many other members of Congress, that theoretically made it possible for NIMH to improve its research portfolio. What effect has the doubling of NIMH’s budget had on its research support for serious mental disorders? This report is essentially a report card on NIMH’s research efforts over the last five years.

I. The Magnitude of the Problem of Serious Mental Illnesses

In 1992, in response to a congressional mandate, the National Advisory Mental Health Council defined “severe mental disorders” as including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness), autism, and severe forms of depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and panic disorder.[3] This section will briefly summarize what is known about these mental disorders in terms of numbers of persons affected, costs, and humanitarian aspects.

A.   Numbers of Affected Persons

In 1999, the Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health reported that “a subpopulation of 5.4 percent of adults is considered to have a ‘serious’ mental illness (SMI)” and “about half of those with SMI (or 2.6 percent of all adults) were identified as being even more seriously affected, that is, by having ‘severe and persistent’ mental illness (SPMI).” The report further specified that SPMI “includes schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, other severe forms of depression, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.” The report also said that “approximately 5 to 9 percent of children ages 9 to 17” have a “serious emotional disturbance (SED).”[4]

The 2003 adult population (18 and over) of the United States is approximately 214 million people. Thus, in this country, there are approximately 11.6 million adults with serious mental illnesses, of which 5.6 million have the most severe and disabling forms.

B.   Costs

The President’s Commission on Mental Health, in its July 2003 report, estimated that in 1997, the latest year for which comparable data were available, the United States spent “almost $71 billion on treating [all] mental illnesses.”[5] These cost estimates include only direct costs for psychiatric services, such as hospitals, psychiatrists, and medications. Mental illnesses also have indirect costs, such as lost productivity of patients and their caretakers and premature deaths. NIMH studies have estimated that the indirect costs of mental illnesses are even greater than the direct costs and were estimated to be $79 billion in 1990.[6]

It was estimated in 1961 that the total direct costs of mental illnesses in the United States were “nearly $1 billion a year.”[7] In constant dollars, and corrected for the intervening increase in population, the $1 billion in 1961 would today be worth $8 billion. However, we are spending $71 billion for treatment, which means that, in constant dollars, the costs of mental illnesses have increased almost ninefold in less than 40 years.

What percentage of the total cost of all mental illnesses is attributable to the most severe forms of these disorders? An NIMH study, based on 1992 and 1995 data, reported that “severe and persistent mental illness accounts for … 58 percent of total costs,” including “70 percent of medical expenditures, 99 percent of premature mortality, and all of the costs of institutionalization, homelessness, and [for mentally ill individuals] social welfare benefits.”[8] The cost of severe and persistent mental illnesses in 1997 was thus $41.2 billion (58 percent of $71 billion). The NIMH study also calculated that the cost of treating severe and persistent mental illness was $19,990 per year per person, compared to $1,700 per year per person with a diagnosis of a less serious mental illness.[9]

The increasing costs of mental illnesses have been borne predominantly at the federal level, specifically by federal Medicaid, Medicare, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and Social Security Disability Income (SSDI).

Medicaid: From 1987 to 1997, Medicaid expenditures for mental illnesses almost tripled from $5.7 to $14.4 billion.[10] As noted in the President’s Commission report, “Medicaid is now the largest payer of mental health services in the country.”

Medicare: From 1987 to 1997, Medicare expenditures for mental illnesses tripled, from $3.0 to $9.1 billion.[11]

SSI: From 1986 to 1998, the percentage of SSI payments that went to the diagnostic group “mental disorders not including mental retardation” increased from 22.6 percent to 31.4 percent. This is the single largest diagnostic group for SSI payments. In dollars, the increase was from $1.5 billion to $7.4 billion.[12]

SSDI: From 1986 to 1998, the percentage of SSDI payments that went to the diagnostic group “mental disorders not including mental retardation” increased from 20.1 percent to 26.6 percent. This is the single largest diagnostic group for SSDI payments. In dollars, the increase was from $3.1 billion to $11.0 billion.[13]

Therefore, total federal dollars allocated to treating and supporting individuals with mental illnesses was $23.5 billion for federal Medicaid and Medicare in 1997 and $18.4 billion for SSI and SSDI in 1998, for a total of $41.9 billion. The President’s Commission report, using more recent unpublished data, estimated the total federal spending to be $45 billion.[14] It should also be noted the increase in federal dollars for these programs between 1986–87 and 1997–98 was $2.6 billion per year, making these programs almost certainly one of the most rapidly growing programs in the federal budget.

C.      Humanitarian Considerations

Many individuals with serious mental disorders lead extremely difficult lives, and this often profoundly affects their families as well. Homelessness, incarceration, victimization, and acts of violence are common experiences for individuals with these illnesses.

Studies have reported that approximately one-third of all homeless individuals have a severe and persistent mental illness.[15] The total number of homeless individuals in the United States has been estimated to be approximately 400,000.[16] This suggests that at any given time, there are approximately 130,000 seriously mentally ill individuals who are homeless. A study of patients discharged from a Massachusetts state psychiatric hospital reported that 27 percent of them became homeless within six months.[17] Life for such individuals is very hard; one study, for example, reported that 28 percent of all homeless mentally ill individuals use garbage cans as “their primary food source.”[18]

A study of jail inmates in the United States reported that 7.2 percent suffer from a serious mental illness.[19] Studies of prison inmates in three states reported that 5.4 percent (range 4.3% to 6.3%) had ever received a diagnosis of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.[20] Other studies have reported a higher proportion of jail and prison inmates as being mentally ill, but such studies have defined mental illness more broadly. In 2002, local jails held 665,475 inmates, while state and federal prisons held 1,367,856 inmates.[21] This suggests that there are approximately 120,000 seriously mentally ill individuals in the nation’s jails and prisons. The Los Angeles County Jail is, de facto, the largest mental institution in the nation. Life for seriously mentally ill prisoners is especially hard and includes victimization and suicide.

Since there are approximately 130,000 seriously mentally ill individuals who are homeless, and an additional 120,000 who are incarcerated in the nation’s jails and prisons at any give time, their total is approximately 250,000 individuals—a quarter of a million people.

Victimization is also a common experience for many individuals with serious mental illnesses who live in the community. A Los Angeles study of such individuals living in board-and-care homes found that one-third of them “reported being robbed and/or assaulted during the preceding year.”[22] Multiple studies suggest that at least one-third of seriously mentally ill women, especially those who are sometimes homeless, have been raped.[23]

Studies suggest that individuals with severe mental illnesses who are being treated are not more dangerous than the general population.[24] However, when they are not being treated, individuals with serious mental illnesses commit a disproportionate number of acts of violence, including homicides. For example, a 1990 study of NAMI members reported that 11 percent of seriously mentally ill individuals had physically harmed another person in the previous year.[25] A 2002 study of 802 adults with serious mental illnesses reported that 14 percent had been violent in the previous year (physical fighting, assaults, use of lethal weapons, or sexual assault).[26]

When serious mental illness is accompanied by substance abuse, acts of violence increase sharply. An NIMH study reported that individuals with serious mental illnesses without substance abuse are “responsible for no more than about 3 percent of violent crime,” including homicides. However, individuals with serious mental illnesses and substance abuse were said to be responsible for “three to five times as much violence” as those with serious mental illness alone.[27]

As measured by numbers, costs, or humanitarian considerations, the problem of serious mental illnesses is immense. It is reasonable to expect a correspondingly immense NIMH response to the problem.

II. NIMH Research Portfolio: Results of the 2002 Survey

From June to September 2003, we carried out a detailed study of the NIMH research portfolio for 2002. We then compared the results with a previous study we had carried out on the NIMH research portfolio for 1997. During the intervening five-year period, the NIMH budget doubled in size.

A.   Allocation of NIMH Research Awards to Serious Mental Illnesses, 1997 and 2002

For 2002, all NIMH-funded research awards were assessed, including extramural and intramural grants, contracts, fellowships, and training awards. They were assessed by reviewing the publicly available abstracts on the NIH CRISP Internet website, as explained in the Methods section (Appendices B and C). All awards were graded by the senior author. Relevance to a serious mental illness was interpreted liberally; for example, all basic neuroscience research awards on neurotransmitters or on the cell signal transduction system were considered to be relevant. The majority of these awards were for basic neuroscience research that may lead to important advances in understanding causes or better treatments for these disorders sometime in the future but are unlikely to improve the treatment or quality of life of individuals presently affected.

The results are presented in Table 1. They show that 28.5 percent of NIMH’s 2002 research awards (1,187/4,157) had some relationship to a serious mental illness. In order to compare the results of the 2002 research portfolio with the 1997 portfolio, additional 1997 awards were analyzed, as explained in Appendix B. This made the data in the two studies similar. In 1997, 32.1 percent of NIMH’s 1997 research awards (832/2,593) had some relationship to serious mental illness. Thus, although there has been an absolute increase in the total number of research awards related to serious mental illnesses during the 1997–2002 period, the proportion of such awards decreased by 11 percent (32.1 percent to 28.5 percent).

NIMH itself, apparently concerned about its allocation of resources to serious mental illnesses, recently carried out a similar survey. In contrast to our survey, which assessed numbers of research awards for all extramural and intramural research programs, the NIMH survey assessed total dollar allocations for these same programs. The NIMH survey was completed in early 2003; we requested a copy of it on May 22, 2003, under the Freedom of Information Act, but to date NIMH has refused to release it.

However, NIMH presented some of the findings of its study at a scientific meeting in May 2003.[28] According to its own survey, the percentage of 2002 NIMH research funds allocated to research related to schizophrenia and “mood disorders and suicide” (which would include bipolar disorder and depression) was 27.3 percent.[29] This is consistent with our finding of 26.3 percent of research awards allocated to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression.

B.   Number of Clinically Relevant Research Awards to Serious Mental Illnesses, 1997 and 2002

In addition to assessing the number of NIMH research awards that were related to serious mental illnesses, we also assessed the number that were clinically relevant, i.e., reasonably likely to improve the treatment and quality of life for individuals presently affected with these disorders. As detailed under Methods (Appendix B), clinically relevant awards include those related to treatments, detection of cases, medical care, medication compliance, rehabilitation, quality of life, and family support.

The 1,187 research awards related to serious mental illnesses were assessed for clinical relevance. As shown in Table 2, 242 awards, 5.8 percent of the total, were judged to be clinically relevant. Thus, only 1 out of every 17 NIMH 2002 research awards is reasonably likely to improve the treatment and quality of life for individuals presently affected by a serious mental illness.

The 2002 clinically relevant awards were compared to those from the 1997 study. As shown in Table 2, the percentage of clinically relevant awards for serious mental illnesses decreased by 22 percent, from 7.4 to 5.8 percent, between 1997 and 2002, with the decrease being most prominent for research on depression.

C.  Intramural Research Program, 1997 and 2002

The NIMH Intramural Research Program (IRP) manages the research carried out on the NIH campus; its funding is approximately 10 percent of the total NIMH budget. In 1997, an IRP planning committee recommended major changes to the program, including phasing out some programs and starting new ones. Thus, during the 1997 to 2002 period, there was a substantial turnover of staff and implementation of new research programs.

In 1997, the IRP had 155 active research projects; in 2002, this number had decreased to 101, reflecting the changes taking place. We assessed the abstracts of the 1997 and 2002 existing research protocols to determine how many were related to serious mental illnesses. In 1997, 35 percent (54/155) of the protocols focused on some aspect of serious mental illnesses. In 2002, this had decreased to 30 percent (30/101). A major reason for this reduction was the closing in 1998 of the NIMH Neuropsychiatric Research Hospital on the grounds of St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C. The reduction was also caused by the impact of the death or retirement of IRP researchers who had been active on research projects related to serious mental illnesses. The greatest impact of IRP reduction in research relevant to serious mental illnesses was on schizophrenia research, which decreased from 24 projects in 1997 to 12 projects in 2002. The percentage of intramural research projects that were clinically relevant in 1997 was 4.5 percent (7/155) and in 2002 4.0 percent (4/101).

In September 2003, NIMH announced a new IRP research initiative for genetic research on schizophrenia. The projected welcome increase in resources will restore IRP schizophrenia research to approximately the level that existed in 1997, prior to the reductions in IRP schizophrenia research.

D.  Research Expenditures By Disease: Serious Mental Illnesses Compared To Other Diseases

As part of the 2002 survey, an effort was made to compare NIH research expenditures on serious mental illnesses to its expenditures on other major diseases. This was done by utilizing existing NIH data for neurological and other common diseases and calculating the NIH research dollars spent per person affected with each disease in a year (Table 3). For comparison purposes, 1999 research expenditures were the most recent available.

It is clear from the table that research on schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder is markedly underfunded, compared to other major diseases. For example, for each $1 NIMH spent on research for a person with schizophrenia, NIH spent $30 on research for a person who was HIV-positive. For each $1 NIMH spent on research for a person with bipolar disorder, NIH spent over $12 on research for a person with cervical cancer. For each $1 NIMH spent on research for a person with depression, NIH spent almost $15 on research for a person with multiple sclerosis. The NIH expenditures, of course, do not include research expenditures by private organizations that raise funds for these diseases.

Our findings are generally supported by NIH’s own analysis of its spending. In an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1999,[30] based on spending in 1996, NIH used a number of different approaches to assess the relationship between disease burden and NIH research expenditures. Most measures of disease burden, including prevalence (the measure used in our analysis), incidence, and the number of hospital days were unassociated with research spending. The strongest relationship was with disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), a measure that takes into account the number of years someone has the disease and how disabling it is. Schizophrenia and, especially, depression were underfunded according to this measure, although less so than peptic ulcer disease and perinatal conditions, for example.

E.      Identification of Rejected Research Proposals, 1997 to 2002

Anecdotally, psychiatric researchers have claimed for many years that NIMH regularly rejects for funding many potentially valuable research proposals on serious mental illnesses while simultaneously funding other projects that have no relevance to serious or any other form of mental illness. As far as we are aware, NIMH has never made public any study of its rejected research proposals. Furthermore, rejected proposals are considered to be confidential and cannot be obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

We therefore decided to solicit such proposals from our research colleagues and to compare them with selected proposals that NIMH did fund. With relatively little effort (see Appendix B for details), we identified 30 research proposals that had been rejected for funding by NIMH between 1997 and 2002, during which time the NIMH budget was doubling.

The rejected research proposals are listed in Appendix A. They all propose research that relates directly to the causes or treatment of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or severe depression. Some were rejected for methodological reasons, while others received good reviews but did not receive a sufficiently high priority score to be funded. For comparison purposes, the rejected proposals are juxtaposed with research proposals that were also funded by NIMH between 1997 and 2002 and that appear to have no relationship to serious mental illnesses. Whenever possible, we selected funded proposals within the same monetary range as the rejected proposals.

Examples of the rejected and funded proposals include the following: NIMH rejected funding for a trial to improve the treatment of schizophrenia but funded a study to ascertain how people in Papua New Guinea “think about their own relationships in the real world.” NIMH rejected funding for a study of bipolar disorder in children but funded a study of self-esteem in college students. NIMH rejected funding for a study to improve the treatment of major depression but funded a study of “sources of friendship” in elementary school students. NIMH rejected funding for a study of the causes of postpartum depression but funded a study of the hearing mechanism of crickets. NIMH rejected funding for a study of medication noncompliance in individuals with serious mental illnesses but funded a study of social communication among electric fish. NIMH rejected funding for research on means of supporting patients being released from psychiatric hospitals but funded a study of preschool children’s understanding of love. NIMH rejected funding for research on measuring lithium in the brain but funded a study of how people in Czechoslovakia cope with social change. These examples and others are detailed in Appendix A.

In viewing such comparisons, it is important to note that the review and funding decisions are made by many different review committees at NIMH. A review committee that is responsible for schizophrenia treatment trial proposals may legitimately claim that, given its total budget, it funded its best proposals. However, that is the precise purpose of such comparisons: to emphasize the point that NIMH’s priorities and allocation of research funds are far too disconnected from the needs of society. The comparisons are simply a way to illustrate NIMH’s unbalanced research portfolio.

F.      Identification of NIMH-funded Research Proposals That Could Have Been Assigned to the National Science Foundation (NSF)

In our previous reviews of research awards funded by NIMH in 1997 and 1999, we noted a large number of basic neuroscience research awards that appeared to be similar to research that traditionally has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Many of these research projects are highly meritorious and may lead to a better understanding of human brain function. However, they have no direct relevance for serious mental illnesses and were classified as such.

NSF was founded by Congress in 1950 with a mandate to support “research and education in science and engineering.” It funds approximately 9,000 new basic science research projects each year. NSF’s mission is basic research, and it does not support research on human diseases, which is the primary mission of NIH. The NSF website, www.nsf.gov, specifically states: “Research with disease-related goals, including work on the etiology, diagnosis, or treatment of physical or mental disease, abnormality, or malfunction in human beings or animals, is normally not supported.”

As described on its website, NSF has three general research areas that are especially relevant for basic neuroscience research:

1.   Division of Integrative Biology and Neuroscience

The purpose of this division is to support “research on all aspects of nervous system structure, function and development.” This includes research that ranges “from fundamental mechanisms of neuronal function at the molecular and cellular levels to adaptations of the brain for appropriate behavior in particular environments.” Within the neuroscience cluster of this division are specific research grant programs for the following: behavioral neuroscience, computational neuroscience, developmental neuroscience, neuroendocrinology, neuronal and glial mechanisms, and sensory systems.

2.   Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences

The purpose of this program is to support research on “how the human brain supports thought, perception, affect, action, social processes, and other aspects of cognition and behavior.” Within this program are specific research programs for human cognition and perception and for cognitive neuroscience.

3.   Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences

This division supports research “contributing to a fundamental understanding of life processes at the molecular, subcellular, and cellular levels.” Within this division are specific research programs for cellular organization and for signal transduction and cellular regulation.