The Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, an organization which funds cutting edge mental health research, announced important discoveries of 2013 funded by its NARSAD grants.
NARSAD is an acronym for the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, the former name for the now Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.
According to Jeffrey Borenstein, M.D., President and CEO of the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, NARSAD grants help to fund research that provides new insight into the mysteries of the brain and potential treatments for people with depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, PTSD and panic disorder.
NARSAD grants are focused on three specific areas of attacking mental illness: basic research, new technologies, and next generation therapies. Different levels of economic support are offered ranging from NARSAD Young Investigator Grants ($30,000/year), NARSAD Independent Investigator Grants ($50,000/year) to NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Grants (100,000/year).
As Borenstein explains, the discoveries in basic research, new technology, next generation therapies and early intervention ranged from findings showing the brain adds 1,400 new neurons a day throughout a person’s lifetime to the identification of brain activity that predicts whether people with serious depression will respond better to antidepressants or psychotherapy.
The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, which funded 225 NARSAD Grants with $17 million in 2013, raises money to fund cutting-edge research for the understanding, early detection, treatment, prevention and cure of mental illness. It has awarded over $300 million in NARSAD Research Grants to more than 3,700 scientists around the world since 1987. Since its inception, the Foundation has been supported by private donations.
“We are entering the golden age of brain research,” said Borenstein, noting that 2013 was a year of highly significant advances.
“The top 10 findings of 2013”, Borenstein proclaims, “highlight the kind of scientific work that will help us understand, treat and cure the mental illnesses that affect one in four people.”
The mission at the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, however, is quite unique in relation to funding mental health research.
“We are able to fund cutting edge research that the government wouldn’t fund because often they [the government] will fund research that already has some level of evidence in place,” offers Borenstein.
“We are able to fund the preliminary work that then allows our scientists that we fund to go on and get further federal funding”, explains Borenstein. “The government is much more risk averse so the opportunity for real advances comes from the type of funding that we provide.”
According to Borenstein, after tracking those investigators who have achieved funding through the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, “for every dollar that we have provided in funding, they have ultimately received on average of 10 dollars from governmental funding subsequently.
As Borenstein sums up, “Because federal funding for research is steadily declining, private funding is required to drive the kind of high risk, high reward research that changes lives.”
Borenstein theorizes that there has been a decline in federal funding for mental health research essentially because “there is still prejudice against mental health issues, specifically how it is portrayed in the press creating a stigma–which in some ways affects funding for mental health”.
“The overall economic situation and government tightening combine to make private funding more important than ever”, added Borenstein. “The paradox is that we are really at a point in time of tremendous opportunity.”
Borenstein concludes that “if we were to then accelerate the amount of funding it would tremendously advance where we are in terms of treatment for these conditions that affect so many people. “Everybody has a loved one or friend affected by one of these conditions.”