Priorities in stress research: a view from the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health

Abstract

The mission of the National Institute of Mental Health is to transform the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses through basic and clinical research, paving the way for prevention, recovery, and cure. In consultation with a broad range of experts, the NIMH has identified a set of priorities for stress biology research aimed squarely at creating the basic and clinical knowledge bases for reducing and alleviating mental health burden across the lifespan. Here, we discuss these priority areas in stress biology research, which include: understanding the heterogeneity of stressors and outcomes; refining and expanding the experimental systems used to study stress and its effects; embracing and exploiting the complexity of the stress response; and prioritizing translational studies that seek to test mechanistic hypotheses in human beings. We emphasize the challenge of establishing mechanistic links across levels of analysis to explain how and when specific and diverse stressors lead to enduring changes in neural systems and produce lasting functional deficits in mental health relevant behaviors. An improved understanding of mechanisms underlying stress responses and the functional consequences of stress can and will speed translation from basic research to predictive markers of risk and to improved, personalized interventions for mental illness.

Keywords:

• Psychiatry
• neurobiology
• translation
• cognition
• emotion
• model systems
• neurodevelopment
• sex differences

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict  of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Janine M. Simmons

Janine M. Simmons, M.D., Ph.D., previous Director of the Social and Affective Neuroscience Program within the Division of Neuroscience and Basic Behavioral Science within the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). She is currently Chief of the Individual Behavioral Processes Branch within the Division of Behavioral and Social Research at the National Institute on Aging (NIA).

Lois Winsky

Lois Winsky, Ph.D., is Director of the Integrative Systems Pharmacology Program and Chief of the Molecular, Cellular, and Genomic Neuroscience Research Branch within the Division of Neuroscience and Basic Behavioral Science within the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

Julia L. Zehr

Julia L. Zehr, Ph.D., is Director of the Integrative Studies of Neurobehavioral Trajectories Program and Chief of the Developmental Mechanisms and Trajectories of Psychopathology Research Branch within the Division of Translational Research at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

Joshua A. Gordon

Joshua A. Gordon, M.D., Ph.D., is the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).