National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Encyclopedia
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$1.5 billion. 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". 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 research 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
.
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.
. Many service people had returned with serious brain injuries, nerve damage, and psychic 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." In addition, 1.7 million American men had been rejected for military service due to a neuropsychiatric condition or learning disorder.
NINDS was also created as part of an effort to "revive the almost extinct neurological field". 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 US armed services were filled by psychiatrists. 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.
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. 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
.
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.
The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Blindness (NINDB), the original name for the NINDS, was officially established on November 22, 1950, three months after President Harry Truman signed the Omnibus Medical Research Act (Public Law 81-692) on August 15, 1950. The legislation had been passed with the efforts of Senator Claude Pepper
, who was responsible for helping the majority of the NIH institutes get their start, wealthy New York entrepreneur Mary Lasker
, and Fight for Sight
founder Mildred Weisenfeld
, who had retinitis pigmentosa.
NINDB was not conceived of entirely coherently at the beginning. For example, blindness was added because some concerned citizens raised the issue with Lasker who, in turn asked Congressman Andrew Biemiller
to do so in Congress. He simply added it to the bill, being sympathetic with the cause since his mother was blind.
NINDB was "responsible for conducting and supporting research and training in the 200 neurological and sensory disorders that affected 20 million individuals in the United States and were 'the first cause of permanent crippling and the third cause of death.'" Because the etiology
of the most common neurological diseases was poorly understood, NINDB undertook both clinical and basic research on the disorders themselves and on treatments; intramural research on the structure of the brain and the nervous system itself; and, finally, extramural research on the entire field of neurology and blindness.
In the beginning, the NINDB had an Advisory Council made of six medical professional and lay people, all appointed by the U. S. Surgeon General
. They formulated the path taken by the institute and granted its funds. The NINDB's first annual budget was US$1.23 million. This came from the existing NIH budget, as Congress had not appropriated any new funds for the institute when it was created. Although the NINDB's budget was increased the $1.99 million in 1952, there was still no money for new research programs. Moreover, the institute had neither a clinic nor a lab. As Ingrid Farreras writes in her history, "The research conducted by the institute was still supported by the NIMH [National Institute of Mental Health] and the institute's survival was unclear."
The NINDB's first director, Pearce Bailey, was appointed on October 3, 1951, and came with experience from the Neuropsychiatry Division at Philadelphia Naval Hospital. He appointed a representative from the AAN to meet with citizens' groups and they met together to generate a unified set of demands. As a result, the National Committee for Research in Neurological Disorders (NCRND) was formed. The NCRND presented a coherent research proposal to Congress and in 1953 the NINDB received a separate line item budget of $4.5 million. The institute was now able to fund its research. However, until 1961, the NINDB and NIMH shared research facilities and scientists, often collaborating on projects.
Bailey established the extramural grants and field investigations into retrolental fibroplasia, geographic deistribution of multiple sclerosis
, and projects related to mental retardation
and cerebral palsy
. In 1955, then U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy
announced, to the organization United Cerebral Palsy
, that the institute was "planning to launch an all-out attack against the dread spectre of cerebral palsy". By 1959, a study to look at how gestation affected cerebral palsy had been started.
During the 1950s, Mary Lasker, Senator Lister Hill and Representative John E. Fogarty
ensured continued financial support for NINDB. Together, the two Congressmen held hearings to establish the NIH budget and lobbied hard for more funds. They were assisted by Lasker, who had extensive Washington connections and was aided by Mike Gorman, a journalist and promoter of mental health. The new director of the NIH, James Shannon
, a politically astute man who also had an ability to pick talented scientists, helped solidify what became "the golden years of science at NIH". With Shannon, Fogarty, Hill, and Lasker working together, the NIH's budget as a whole increased more than tenfold between 1955 and 1965. This directly benefited NINDB, as its budget rose and fell along with general budget.
Throughout the 1960s, under the directorship of Richard L. Masland, the NINDB sponsored the ground-breaking research of Carleton Gajdusek and Joseph Gibbs. Gajdusek eventually won a Nobel Prize
for his work on kuru
in New Guinea
. The NINDB also set up clinical research centers at several universities as well as targeted research programs, such as the head injury program and the epilepsy initiative.
Stroke
was added to the institute's mandate in the 1960s and in October 1968 the institute became the "National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke". Lasker was prompted to address the disease when Joseph P. Kennedy, father of then-President John F. Kennedy had one. She convinced him that a stroke commission would be a good idea and they agreed that Michael E. DeBakey
would be a good director. After Kennedy was assassinated
, she approached President Lyndon Johnson, who established the President's Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke in 1964 with DeBakey at its head. The commission produced a report that resulted in a bill being passed in 1965 that established centers for the diseases across the country. In his history of the NINDS, Rowland explains that "authorities later doubted that they had much lasting impact on stroke theory or therapy." This example, he notes, "illustrates the tension between advocates of basic research and those who wanted immediate application". Johnson and Lasker wanted to see people benefit right away while the director of the NIH, Shannon, and other scientists were more cautious about using knowledge they did not fully understand and skeptical of the "disease-of-the-month approach". They had a "bedrock belief in the importance of basic science".
The political alliance that between Shannon, Lasker, Fogarty, and Hill began to splinter at the end of the 1960s. In 1967 when he wrote a 20-year history of the NIH, Shannon did not mention Lasker's contributions. By 1968, Fogarty had died and Hill and Johnson had declined to run for reelection. With the election of Richard Nixon
, the tone of research funding changed.
In general, according to Rowland, "there was a feeling that vision research was not being adequately at NINDB". In 1967, a bill to create a separate eye institute was drafted, and in August 1968, federal legislation created the National Eye Institute
, to build an enlarged program based on the blindness research that had been conducted by NINDB.
's administration directed the institutes to work more aggressively on applied research and projects that would directly affect patients. Natalie Spingarn argues in her book about the politics of health research that the Nixon administration resisted scientists who did were not politically sympathetic to the president. Shannon has described the years between 1967 and 1970 as a time of "progressive constraints": the budgetary process was "chaotic", with "Presidential vetoes, overrides by Congress, proposed recission of funds allocated, acceptance or rejection of these recissions by Congress, impoundment of appropriations, and their later release by court action". In general, increases in the NIH budget during the 1970s and 1980s often did not exceed inflation. Edward F. MacNichol, who was director of NINDS between 1968 and 1973 described his tenure as the end of a "long period of NIH prosperity". Rowland writes that "these years of financial insecurity may have been the most difficult time in the history of NINDS". However, he notes the achievements they made as well. For example, King Engel and his team discovered that prednisone
could effectively treat myasthenia gravis
and acetazolamide
was shown to prevent periodic paralysis
.
In March 1975 the institute was again renamed, becoming the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke (NINCDS).
, and NINCDS was renamed the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, its current name.
and Tom Harkin
were responsible for pushing a large increase in the NIH budget as a whole. They doubled it in five years and subsequent years saw annual increases of 15 percent.
, 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 disease
d nervous system, fosters the training of investigators in the basic and clinical neurosciences, and seeks better understanding, diagnosis
, treatment, and prevention of neurological disorders."
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."
"Some key areas of NINDS clinical research include: neurological consequences of AIDS
, Alzheimer's disease
, brain tumor
s, developmental disorder
s, epilepsy, motor neuron
diseases, muscular dystrophies
, multiple sclerosis
, neurogenetic disorders, pain
, Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, sleep disorder
s, spinal cord
injury, stroke, and traumatic brain injury
."
"Most NINDS-funded research is conducted by extramural scientists in public and private institutions, such as universities, medical school
s, 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."
has been the director of the institute since September 1, 2003. She began working at NINDS in 1995 as Scientific Director and between 1999 and 2000 helped coordinate the efforts to unite the 200 laboratories and 11 NIH institutes. In 2007, she was named Chair of the NIH Stem Cell Task Force.
Dr. Landis received her undergraduate degree in biology from Wellesley College in 1967 and her Master's Degree (1970) and Ph.D. (1973) from Harvard University
, where she researched cerebellar development in mice. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, where she studied transmitter plasticity in sympathetic neurons, and then a professor at Harvard Medical School
's Department of Neurobiology. In 1985, she joined the faculty of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
. Dr. Landis has been granted many honors in her distinguished career and is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
, the American Association for the Advancement of Science
, and the American Neurological Association
.
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
(NIH). It conducts and funds research on brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
and nervous system
Nervous system
The nervous system is an organ system containing a network of specialized cells called neurons that coordinate the actions of an animal and transmit signals between different parts of its body. In most animals the nervous system consists of two parts, central and peripheral. The central nervous...
disorders and has a budget of just over US$1.5 billion. 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". 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 research extramural research. NINDS' basic science research focuses on studies of the fundamental biology of the brain and nervous system, genetics
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
, 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
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
, Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
, epilepsy
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...
, muscular dystrophy
Muscular dystrophy
Muscular dystrophy is a group of muscle diseases that weaken the musculoskeletal system and hamper locomotion. Muscular dystrophies are characterized by progressive skeletal muscle weakness, defects in muscle proteins, and the death of muscle cells and tissue.In the 1860s, descriptions of boys who...
, multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease in which the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord are damaged, leading to demyelination and scarring as well as a broad spectrum of signs and symptoms...
, Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...
, spinal cord
Spinal cord
The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular bundle of nervous tissue and support cells that extends from the brain . The brain and spinal cord together make up the central nervous system...
injury, stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
, and traumatic brain injury
Traumatic brain injury
Traumatic brain injury , also known as intracranial injury, occurs when an external force traumatically injures the brain. TBI can be classified based on severity, mechanism , or other features...
.
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
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, 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.
Impetus for creation
The NINDS was created in 1950 to study and treat the neurological and psychiatric casualties of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Many service people had returned with serious brain injuries, nerve damage, and psychic 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." In addition, 1.7 million American men had been rejected for military service due to a neuropsychiatric condition or learning disorder.
NINDS was also created as part of an effort to "revive the almost extinct neurological field". At the time, psychiatry
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
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 US armed services were filled by psychiatrists. After the war, a survey by the Veteran's Administration of the members of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology
American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology
The American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, Inc. is a nonprofit corporation that was founded in 1934 following conferences of committees appointed by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Neurological Association, and the then Section on Nervous and Mental Diseases of the American...
found that 48 were neurologists and 456 were psychiatrists.
In 1948, Abe B. Baker, chair of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
, formed the American Academy of Neurology
American Academy of Neurology
The American Academy of Neurology is a professional society for neurologists and neuroscientists. As a medical specialty society it was established in 1949 by A.B. Baker of the University of Minnesota to advance the art and science of neurology, and thereby promote the best possible care for...
(AAN) to give young neurologists a national organization to join. However, sustained research in neurology was not possible without a national institute. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, vocal American Neurological Association
American Neurological Association
The American Neurological Association, is a professional society with a mission of educating neurologists and physicians as well as increasing knowledge and enhancing treatment of diseases of the nervous system. It was founded in June 1875.-Officers:...
(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
Multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease in which the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord are damaged, leading to demyelination and scarring as well as a broad spectrum of signs and symptoms...
, cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy is an umbrella term encompassing a group of non-progressive, non-contagious motor conditions that cause physical disability in human development, chiefly in the various areas of body movement....
, muscular dystrophy
Muscular dystrophy
Muscular dystrophy is a group of muscle diseases that weaken the musculoskeletal system and hamper locomotion. Muscular dystrophies are characterized by progressive skeletal muscle weakness, defects in muscle proteins, and the death of muscle cells and tissue.In the 1860s, descriptions of boys who...
, epilepsy
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...
, and blindness
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
.
Members of the research grants committee of the National Institute of Mental Health
National Institute of Mental Health
The National Institute of Mental Health is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of 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.
Creation
Claude Pepper
Claude Denson Pepper was an American politician of the Democratic Party, and a spokesman for left-liberalism and the elderly. In foreign policy he shifted from pro-Soviet in the 1940s to anti-Communist in the 1950s...
, who was responsible for helping the majority of the NIH institutes get their start, wealthy New York entrepreneur Mary Lasker
Mary Lasker
Mary Woodard Lasker was an American health activist. She worked to raise funds for medical research, and founded the Lasker Foundation....
, and Fight for Sight
Fight for Sight (U.S.)
Fight for Sight is a nonprofit organization in the United States which funds medical research in vision and ophthalmology. It was formed in 1946 as the National Council to Combat Blindness , the first non-profit in the United States to fund vision research; 2011 marked its 65th anniversary.Based in...
founder Mildred Weisenfeld
Mildred Weisenfeld
Mildred Mosler Weisenfeld is the Brooklyn-born founder of national not-for-profit foundation the National Council to Combat Blindness in 1946, now known as Fight for Sight, an organization based in New York City that provides initial funds to promising scientists early in their careers...
, who had retinitis pigmentosa.
NINDB was not conceived of entirely coherently at the beginning. For example, blindness was added because some concerned citizens raised the issue with Lasker who, in turn asked Congressman Andrew Biemiller
Andrew Biemiller
Andrew John Biemiller was a prominent leader of American liberalism in the 20th century....
to do so in Congress. He simply added it to the bill, being sympathetic with the cause since his mother was blind.
NINDB was "responsible for conducting and supporting research and training in the 200 neurological and sensory disorders that affected 20 million individuals in the United States and were 'the first cause of permanent crippling and the third cause of death.'" Because the etiology
Etiology
Etiology is the study of causation, or origination. The word is derived from the Greek , aitiologia, "giving a reason for" ....
of the most common neurological diseases was poorly understood, NINDB undertook both clinical and basic research on the disorders themselves and on treatments; intramural research on the structure of the brain and the nervous system itself; and, finally, extramural research on the entire field of neurology and blindness.
In the beginning, the NINDB had an Advisory Council made of six medical professional and lay people, all appointed by the U. S. Surgeon General
Surgeon General of the United States
The Surgeon General of the United States is the operational head of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and thus the leading spokesperson on matters of public health in the federal government...
. They formulated the path taken by the institute and granted its funds. The NINDB's first annual budget was US$1.23 million. This came from the existing NIH budget, as Congress had not appropriated any new funds for the institute when it was created. Although the NINDB's budget was increased the $1.99 million in 1952, there was still no money for new research programs. Moreover, the institute had neither a clinic nor a lab. As Ingrid Farreras writes in her history, "The research conducted by the institute was still supported by the NIMH [National Institute of Mental Health] and the institute's survival was unclear."
The NINDB's first director, Pearce Bailey, was appointed on October 3, 1951, and came with experience from the Neuropsychiatry Division at Philadelphia Naval Hospital. He appointed a representative from the AAN to meet with citizens' groups and they met together to generate a unified set of demands. As a result, the National Committee for Research in Neurological Disorders (NCRND) was formed. The NCRND presented a coherent research proposal to Congress and in 1953 the NINDB received a separate line item budget of $4.5 million. The institute was now able to fund its research. However, until 1961, the NINDB and NIMH shared research facilities and scientists, often collaborating on projects.
1951–1968: Strong political alliances and adding stroke
Multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease in which the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord are damaged, leading to demyelination and scarring as well as a broad spectrum of signs and symptoms...
, and projects related to mental retardation
Mental retardation
Mental retardation is a generalized disorder appearing before adulthood, characterized by significantly impaired cognitive functioning and deficits in two or more adaptive behaviors...
and cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy is an umbrella term encompassing a group of non-progressive, non-contagious motor conditions that cause physical disability in human development, chiefly in the various areas of body movement....
. In 1955, then U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
announced, to the organization United Cerebral Palsy
United Cerebral Palsy
United Cerebral Palsy is an international nonprofit charitable organization consisting of a network of affiliates. UCP is a leading service provider and advocate for adults and children with disabilities, including cerebral palsy...
, that the institute was "planning to launch an all-out attack against the dread spectre of cerebral palsy". By 1959, a study to look at how gestation affected cerebral palsy had been started.
During the 1950s, Mary Lasker, Senator Lister Hill and Representative John E. Fogarty
John E. Fogarty
John Edward Fogarty was a Congressman from Rhode Island for 26 years.Congressman John E. Fogarty was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1940 and served until his death on January 10, 1967 as he was being sworn in for his fourteenth consecutive term...
ensured continued financial support for NINDB. Together, the two Congressmen held hearings to establish the NIH budget and lobbied hard for more funds. They were assisted by Lasker, who had extensive Washington connections and was aided by Mike Gorman, a journalist and promoter of mental health. The new director of the NIH, James Shannon
James Augustine Shannon
James Augustine Shannon was an American nephrologist who served as director of National Institutes of Health from 1955-1968. In 1962 he was awarded the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences....
, a politically astute man who also had an ability to pick talented scientists, helped solidify what became "the golden years of science at NIH". With Shannon, Fogarty, Hill, and Lasker working together, the NIH's budget as a whole increased more than tenfold between 1955 and 1965. This directly benefited NINDB, as its budget rose and fell along with general budget.
Throughout the 1960s, under the directorship of Richard L. Masland, the NINDB sponsored the ground-breaking research of Carleton Gajdusek and Joseph Gibbs. Gajdusek eventually won a Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
for his work on kuru
Kuru (disease)
Kuru is an incurable degenerative neurological disorder that is a type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, caused by a prion found in humans...
in New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
. The NINDB also set up clinical research centers at several universities as well as targeted research programs, such as the head injury program and the epilepsy initiative.
Stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
was added to the institute's mandate in the 1960s and in October 1968 the institute became the "National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke". Lasker was prompted to address the disease when Joseph P. Kennedy, father of then-President John F. Kennedy had one. She convinced him that a stroke commission would be a good idea and they agreed that Michael E. DeBakey
Michael E. DeBakey
Michael Elias DeBakey was a world-renowned Lebanese-American cardiac surgeon, innovator, scientist, medical educator, and international medical statesman...
would be a good director. After Kennedy was assassinated
John F. Kennedy assassination
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...
, she approached President Lyndon Johnson, who established the President's Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke in 1964 with DeBakey at its head. The commission produced a report that resulted in a bill being passed in 1965 that established centers for the diseases across the country. In his history of the NINDS, Rowland explains that "authorities later doubted that they had much lasting impact on stroke theory or therapy." This example, he notes, "illustrates the tension between advocates of basic research and those who wanted immediate application". Johnson and Lasker wanted to see people benefit right away while the director of the NIH, Shannon, and other scientists were more cautious about using knowledge they did not fully understand and skeptical of the "disease-of-the-month approach". They had a "bedrock belief in the importance of basic science".
The political alliance that between Shannon, Lasker, Fogarty, and Hill began to splinter at the end of the 1960s. In 1967 when he wrote a 20-year history of the NIH, Shannon did not mention Lasker's contributions. By 1968, Fogarty had died and Hill and Johnson had declined to run for reelection. With the election of Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
, the tone of research funding changed.
In general, according to Rowland, "there was a feeling that vision research was not being adequately at NINDB". In 1967, a bill to create a separate eye institute was drafted, and in August 1968, federal legislation created the National Eye Institute
National Eye Institute
The National Eye Institute is one of the US National Institutes of Health that was established in 1968. The mission of NEI is to prolong and protect the vision of the American people. The NEI conducts and performs research into treating and preventing diseases affecting the eye or vision....
, to build an enlarged program based on the blindness research that had been conducted by NINDB.
1968–1980
Starting in the late 1960s, the budget of the NIH as a whole was, which affected NINDS. Training programs were cut. President Richard NixonRichard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
's administration directed the institutes to work more aggressively on applied research and projects that would directly affect patients. Natalie Spingarn argues in her book about the politics of health research that the Nixon administration resisted scientists who did were not politically sympathetic to the president. Shannon has described the years between 1967 and 1970 as a time of "progressive constraints": the budgetary process was "chaotic", with "Presidential vetoes, overrides by Congress, proposed recission of funds allocated, acceptance or rejection of these recissions by Congress, impoundment of appropriations, and their later release by court action". In general, increases in the NIH budget during the 1970s and 1980s often did not exceed inflation. Edward F. MacNichol, who was director of NINDS between 1968 and 1973 described his tenure as the end of a "long period of NIH prosperity". Rowland writes that "these years of financial insecurity may have been the most difficult time in the history of NINDS". However, he notes the achievements they made as well. For example, King Engel and his team discovered that prednisone
Prednisone
Prednisone is a synthetic corticosteroid drug that is particularly effective as an immunosuppressant drug. It is used to treat certain inflammatory diseases and some types of cancer, but has significant adverse effects...
could effectively treat myasthenia gravis
Myasthenia gravis
Myasthenia gravis is an autoimmune neuromuscular disease leading to fluctuating muscle weakness and fatiguability...
and acetazolamide
Acetazolamide
Acetazolamide, sold under the trade name Diamox, is a carbonic anhydrase inhibitor that is used to treat glaucoma, epileptic seizures, Idiopathic intracranial hypertension , altitude sickness, cystinuria, and dural ectasia...
was shown to prevent periodic paralysis
Paralysis
Paralysis is loss of muscle function for one or more muscles. Paralysis can be accompanied by a loss of feeling in the affected area if there is sensory damage as well as motor. A study conducted by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, suggests that about 1 in 50 people have been diagnosed...
.
In March 1975 the institute was again renamed, becoming the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke (NINCDS).
1980s
In November 1988, some of NINCDS's research was moved to the newly created National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication DisordersNational Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders , a member of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, is mandated to conduct and support biomedical and behavioral research and research training in the normal and disordered processes of hearing, balance, smell, taste, voice,...
, and NINCDS was renamed the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, its current name.
1990s
During the 1990s, Senators Arlen SpecterArlen Specter
Arlen Specter is a former United States Senator from Pennsylvania. Specter is a Democrat, but was a Republican from 1965 until switching to the Democratic Party in 2009...
and Tom Harkin
Tom Harkin
Thomas Richard "Tom" Harkin is the junior United States Senator from Iowa and a member of the Democratic Party. He previously served in the United States House of Representatives ....
were responsible for pushing a large increase in the NIH budget as a whole. They doubled it in five years and subsequent years saw annual increases of 15 percent.
2000s
The NINDS budget passed $1 billion for the first time in fiscal 2000; the bulk of the budget is dedicated to extramural research and investigator-initiated grants (intramural research accounts for about 10 percent of the total).Mission
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". The NINDS notes that there are over 600 such disorders, with some of the common being strokeStroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
, epilepsy
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...
, Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...
, and autism
Autism
Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their...
. In an effort to achieve their goal, the NINDS "supports and conducts research, both basic and clinical, on the normal and disease
Disease
A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...
d nervous system, fosters the training of investigators in the basic and clinical neurosciences, and seeks better understanding, diagnosis
Medical diagnosis
Medical diagnosis refers both to the process of attempting to determine or identify a possible disease or disorder , and to the opinion reached by this process...
, treatment, and prevention of neurological disorders."
General
"Some important areas of NINDS basic research include: biologyBiology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
of the cells of the nervous system, brain and nervous system development, genetics
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
of the brain, cognition
Cognition
In science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...
and behavior, neurodegeneration, brain plasticity and repair, neural signaling, learning and memory, motor control and integration, sensory function, and neural channels, synapses, and circuits."
"Some key areas of NINDS clinical research include: neurological consequences of AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
, Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
, brain tumor
Brain tumor
A brain tumor is an intracranial solid neoplasm, a tumor within the brain or the central spinal canal.Brain tumors include all tumors inside the cranium or in the central spinal canal...
s, developmental disorder
Developmental disorder
Developmental disorders occur at some stage in a child's development, often retarding the development. These may include,psychological or physical disorders. The disorder is an impairment in the normal development of motor or cognitive skills that are developed before age 18 in which they are...
s, epilepsy, motor neuron
Motor neuron
In vertebrates, the term motor neuron classically applies to neurons located in the central nervous system that project their axons outside the CNS and directly or indirectly control muscles...
diseases, muscular dystrophies
Muscular dystrophy
Muscular dystrophy is a group of muscle diseases that weaken the musculoskeletal system and hamper locomotion. Muscular dystrophies are characterized by progressive skeletal muscle weakness, defects in muscle proteins, and the death of muscle cells and tissue.In the 1860s, descriptions of boys who...
, multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease in which the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord are damaged, leading to demyelination and scarring as well as a broad spectrum of signs and symptoms...
, neurogenetic disorders, pain
Pain
Pain is an unpleasant sensation often caused by intense or damaging stimuli such as stubbing a toe, burning a finger, putting iodine on a cut, and bumping the "funny bone."...
, Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, sleep disorder
Sleep disorder
A sleep disorder, or somnipathy, is a medical disorder of the sleep patterns of a person or animal. Some sleep disorders are serious enough to interfere with normal physical, mental and emotional functioning...
s, spinal cord
Spinal cord
The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular bundle of nervous tissue and support cells that extends from the brain . The brain and spinal cord together make up the central nervous system...
injury, stroke, and traumatic brain injury
Traumatic brain injury
Traumatic brain injury , also known as intracranial injury, occurs when an external force traumatically injures the brain. TBI can be classified based on severity, mechanism , or other features...
."
"Most NINDS-funded research is conducted by extramural scientists in public and private institutions, such as universities, medical school
Medical school
A medical school is a tertiary educational institution—or part of such an institution—that teaches medicine. Degree programs offered at medical schools often include Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, Bachelor/Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Philosophy, master's degree, or other post-secondary...
s, 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."
Director
Dr. Story LandisStory Landis
Story Landis is an American neurobiologist and director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. She has been director of the institute since September 1, 2003....
has been the director of the institute since September 1, 2003. She began working at NINDS in 1995 as Scientific Director and between 1999 and 2000 helped coordinate the efforts to unite the 200 laboratories and 11 NIH institutes. In 2007, she was named Chair of the NIH Stem Cell Task Force.
Dr. Landis received her undergraduate degree in biology from Wellesley College in 1967 and her Master's Degree (1970) and Ph.D. (1973) from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, where she researched cerebellar development in mice. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, where she studied transmitter plasticity in sympathetic neurons, and then a professor at Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....
's Department of Neurobiology. In 1985, she joined the faculty of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Case Western Reserve School of Medicine is one of the graduate schools of Case Western Reserve University, and is located in the University Circle neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. The School of Medicine is among the top 25 medical schools in America and is the top-ranked medical school of Ohio in...
. Dr. Landis has been granted many honors in her distinguished career and is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
, the American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
, and the American Neurological Association
American Neurological Association
The American Neurological Association, is a professional society with a mission of educating neurologists and physicians as well as increasing knowledge and enhancing treatment of diseases of the nervous system. It was founded in June 1875.-Officers:...
.
Division of Extramural Research
The Division of Extramural Research funds programs outside of the NIH which "support research, research training, and career development". The Division itself is broken down into "program clusters" that are "organized around critical, cross-cutting scientific topics that hold great promise for advancing knowledge and reducing the burden of neurological disease". They are: Repair and Plasticity; Systems and Cognitive Neuroscience; Channels, Synapses, and Circuits; Neurogenetics; Neural Environment; and Neurodegeneration. Other working groups include: the Clinical Trials group, the Office of Minority Health and Research, the Technology Development group; and the Office of International Activities, and the Office of Training and Career Development. Within these areas, the Division tracks research and development and determines the necessity and areas for further research, analyzing and reporting on its findings to the NIH and the nation. It pursues research with other NIH institutes. Finally, it consults with and outside scientists, health organizations, and medical associational to help identify research needs and develops necessary programs to meet them.Division of Intramural Research
The Division of Intramural Research is "one of the largest neuroscience research centers in the world". Scientists here do research in the "basic, translational, and clinical neurosciences", covering a wide range of topics, including "molecular biophysics, synapses and circuits, neuronal development, integrative neuroscience, brain imaging and neurological disorders".List of directors
| Years | Name |
|---|---|
| 1951–59 | Pearce Bailey |
| 1959–68 | Richard L. Masland |
| 1968–73 | Edward F. MacNichol, Jr. |
| 1973– | Robert Q. Marston, Acting |
| 1973–81 | Donald B. Tower |
| 1981–93 | Murray Goldstein |
| 1993–94 | Patricia A. Grady, Acting |
| 1994–97 | Zach W. Hall |
| 1997–98 | Audrey S. Penn, Acting |
| 1998–2001 | Gerald D. Fischbach |
| 2001–03 | Audrey S. Penn, Acting |
| 2003– | Story C. Landis |