Neurological and mental disorders and diseases news, resources and funding for global health researchers

Fogarty and NIH invest in research to address a number of neurological and mental disorders and diseases. These conditions are an enormous burden in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), which lack the financial and human resources to deal with them. Included are:

• Addiction
• Neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's
• Neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism, fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and learning disabilities
• Neuropsychiatric conditions such as depression, schizophrenia, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Seizure disorders

Fogarty and NIH also support research on how environmental exposures, childhood adversity, nutrition, injury and other factors impact brain development, and how the rehabilitation process for these diseases and disorders influences treatment and recovery.

Research at NIH on the full spectrum of brain disorders and diseases spans many of the NIH Institutes and Center. Fogarty's Global Brain Disorders Research program generates more trans-NIH support than any other Fogarty program.

Recent News

• Knowledge, Attitudes and Confidence in Providing Dementia Care to Older Adults Among Nurses Practicing in Hanoi, Vietnam: A Cross-Sectional Study
  Wiley Online Library, November 11, 2024
• Gene variant slows form of inherited Alzheimer’s disease
  NIH Research Matters, July 23, 2024
• Study of Protective Gene Variant Provides Insight into Delaying Onset of Alzheimer’s Dementia
  NIH Director’s blog, July 18, 2024
• Implementation strategies to build mental health-care capacity in Malawi: a health-economic evaluation, co-authored by Fogarty grant recipients Kazione Kulisewa and Bradley Gaynes, and Fogarty trainee Michael Udedi
  The Lancet Global Health, April 1, 2024
• Factors associated with depressive symptoms among returnee migrants and non-migrants working adults in Madi municipality in Nepal: a community-based cross-sectional study, co-authored by former Fogarty Global Health Fellows Pratik Adhikary, Hridaya Raj Devkota, and Dirgha J. Ghimire
  BMC Public Health, March 20, 2024
• Intervention reduces likelihood of developing postpartum anxiety and depression by more than 70%
  NIH news, February 26, 2024
• Novel functional insights into ischemic stroke biology provided by the first genome-wide association study of stroke in indigenous Africans, co-authored by Fogarty grant recipients Bruce Ovbiagele and Mayowa O. Owolabi, Fogarty trainees Onoja Akpa, Reginald Obiako, Godwin O. Osaigbovo, Abiodun Adeoye, Okechukwu S. Ogah, Godwin Ogbole, and Akinkunmi Okekunle, and National Human Genome Research Institute’s Charles Rotimi
  Genome Medicine, February 5, 2024

Related Fogarty News and Information

Feature: Mental health treatment abroad

• Addressing mental health abroad helps US communities
  
• Employing user-centered design to fill gaps in mental health treatment
  
• Tackling tobacco, TB, and mental health in South Africa

Global Health Matters, Nov/Dec 2022

NIH News and Resources

Neuroscience and Neurological Disorders

• NIH Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative
• Neuroscience@NIH
• NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research
• NIH NeuroBioBank - A federated network of U.S. brain and tissue repositories
• National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) resources:
• NINDS Disorder Index
• NINDS Common Data Elements (CDE) Project - systematically collect, analyze and share data across the neurological research community
• NINDS Systems and Cognitive Neuroscience funding
• Neuroscience from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
• International Alzheimer's Disease Research Portfolio (IADRP) from the National Institute on Aging (NIA)

Mental Health

• National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH):
• Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health from NIMH
• Mental Health Information from NIMH
• Webinars on Disparities and Global Mental Health from NIMH
• NIMH 2020 Strategic Plan
• Grand Challenges in Mental Health article series following NIH workshop 
  PLOS Medicine, spring 2013:
• Integration in research, policy and practice
• Integrating maternal mental health into maternal and child health programs
• Integrating mental health care into the noncommunicable disease agenda
• Improving HIV treatment outcomes by integrating interventions for comorbid mental illness
• Integrating mental health services into priority health care platforms
• Mental Health and Stress-Related Disorders
  from NIEHS Global Environmental Health

Aging

• National Institute on Aging (NIA) on Global Aging

Addiction

• National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) on Addiction Science
• NIDA International Program

Other US Government Resources

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Mental Health information
• Department of Defense (DoD): DoD Special Report: Traumatic Brain Injury
• Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
• National Center for PTSD
• VA, DOD embark on new endeavor to study mysteries of traumatic brain injury
  VA Office of Research and Development news, January 14, 2020
• MentalHealth.gov
• National Science Foundation (NSF) Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS)
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
• United States Agency for International Development (USAID)U.S. Government Action Plan on Children in Adversity

Other Online Resources

• International Brain Research Organization (IBRO)
  
• Society for Neuroscience
• World Health Organization (WHO): Mental Health and Substance Use
  

Updated February 26, 2025