News & Updates

Since its founding as an entity to “encourage imaginative research into the complex processes of human development,” the NICHD has both supported and conducted research in the neurosciences. Initially, this work focused on examining problems of birth defects and intellectual and developmental disabilities.

A study from a National Institutes of Health research network found that an early treatment to prevent severe newborn jaundice in extremely early preterm infants reduced the infants' rate of brain injury, a serious complication of severe jaundice.

Preterm infants born to mothers receiving intravenous magnesium sulfate--a common treatment to delay labor--are less likely to develop cerebral palsy than are preterm infants whose mothers do not receive it, report researchers in a large National Institutes of Health research network.

A brain chemical that plays a role in long term memory also appears to be involved in regulating how much people eat and their likelihood of becoming obese, according to a National Institutes of Health study of a rare genetic condition.

People with schizophrenia have an alteration in a pattern of brain electrical activity associated with learning and memory. Now, researchers from the National Institutes of Health and Sweden's Karolinska Institute have identified in mouse brain tissue a molecular switch that, when thrown, increases the strength of this electrical pattern.

A study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has transformed scientists' understanding of Rett syndrome, a genetic disorder that causes autistic behavior and other disabling symptoms. Until now, scientists thought that the gene behind Rett syndrome was an "off" switch, or repressor, for other genes. But the new study, published today in Science1, shows that it is an "on" switch for a startlingly large number of genes.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced on April 1, 2008, the latest recipients of the Autism Centers of Excellence (ACE) program. These grants will support studies covering a broad range of autism research areas, including early brain development and functioning, social interactions in infants, rare genetic variants and mutations, associations between autism-related genes and physical traits, possible environmental risk factors and biomarkers, and a potential new medication treatment.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver, executive vice president of the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation and founder and honorary chairperson of Special Olympics, has been a leader in the worldwide struggle to improve and enhance the lives of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities for most of her life. Her vision and unrelenting efforts helped to establish the NICHD in 1962. In recognition of her dedication, Congress passed Public Law 110-154 on December 21, 2007, renaming the Institute as the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Research on lifelong disorders, such as Down syndrome, has been a fundamental part of the NICHD’s mission since the Institute was established 45 years ago. To build on this research foundation and coordinate Down syndrome research the NIH created its Working Group on Down Syndrome. Down syndrome is the most common genetic cause of intellectual and developmental disability and occurs in one out of 800 births in the United States.

Researchers funded in part by the National Institutes of Health have identified the gene that accounts for most cases of Goltz syndrome, a rare skin disorder that can also affect bone and eye development.

Status epilepticus—continuous, unrelenting seizures that continue beyond several minutes—is a serious, life-threatening condition that affects up to 60,000 children and adults in the United States every year. Such seizures may occur in anyone who has a seizure disorder, often called epilepsy, or in response to such conditions as infection around the brain, brain tumor, head injury, very high fever, or very low blood sugar levels.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Pediatric Seizure Study. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question and answer session. Instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host today, Mr. Bob Bock, Press Officer, NICHD.

The scenario unfolds almost every day in the United States. A crowd gathers at a playground, or perhaps on a soccer field. A child has fallen to the ground, gripped by a seizure. Usually, the twitching and jerking stop within a few minutes.

Children appear to approach adult levels of performance on many basic cognitive and motor skills by age 11 or 12, according to a new study coordinated by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have discovered how a defect in a single master gene disrupts the process by which several genes interact to create myelin, a fatty coating that covers nerve cells and increases the speed and reliability of their electrical signals.

The largest search for autism genes to date, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has implicated components of the brain's glutamate chemical messenger system and a previously overlooked site on chromosome 11.

The brain's fear hub Likely becomes abnormally small in the most severely socially impaired males with autism spectrum disorders, researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and National Institute on Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) have discovered.

Abuse of children and adolescents is a complex international problem that seems to defy simple analysis and easy answers. To understand child abuse and exploitation, and to make an impact on the outcomes of these children, the NICHD is joining the American Psychological Association in marking the World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse on November 19.

Infants who die of sudden infant death syndrome have abnormalities in the brainstem, a part of the brain that helps control heart rate, breathing, blood pressure, temperature and arousal, report researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health.

The current study appears in the November 1 Journal of the American Medical Association provides additional evidence that brainstem abnormalities may impair an infant's ability to sense high carbon dioxide and low oxygen levels.