News & Updates

NIH invites comments on its Plan of Rehabilitation Research to help update the plan.

NICHD’s Amir Gandjbakhche, Ph.D., leads a team that is pioneering the use of portable imaging technology to study human development and health conditions, including brain injuries and disorders.

A 5-minute delay in clamping the umbilical cord after birth may benefit an infant’s developing brain, suggests a small study funded by the National Institutes of Health. By 4 months of age, the brains of infants in the study who underwent delayed clamping had more myelin, a brain-insulating material, compared to those whose cords were clamped within 20 seconds.

Seventy-seven year old NICHD researcher Keiko Ozato, Ph.D., started her laboratory in 1981. We caught up with her as she thought about how some early challenges shaped her life and research career.

As 2018 winds down, a new slideshow highlights a selection of initiatives, therapies, and scientific advances supported by NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

In 2018, researchers funded by NICHD made significant progress in advancing the health and well-being of infants, children, teenagers, and adults across the United States and around the world.

The initiative seeks to improve treatment and care of infants and children who were exposed to opioids in the womb.

NIH findings in rodents suggest that astrocytes play an important role in how the brain processes information.

The brain’s pineal gland has two kinds of pinealocytes—cells that make melatonin—the hormone that regulates the body’s sleep and wake cycles, according to a rodent study conducted by researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The findings have the potential to inform future research on disorders that involve melatonin, such as jet lag and seasonal affective disorder.

NICHD’s mission includes understanding child development and behavior. Check out these scientific advances related to Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

Neurons absorb and release water when they relay messages throughout the brain, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions. Tracking this water movement with imaging technology may one day provide valuable information on normal brain activity, as well as how injury or disease affect brain function.

New findings in zebrafish help explain how the brain filters information from the environment and may improve our understanding of neurological disorders.

A protein found only in mouse embryos and not in adult mice is important for fetal neurodevelopment, according to NICHD researchers.

The findings suggest new ways to treat long-term pain without opioids.

As part of NICHD’s continued partnership with the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity®, Inc., the NICHD-led Safe to Sleep® campaign recently launched a mini-grant program to support fraternity members in conducting safe infant sleep outreach. The mini-grants will enable Kappa members to lead and host activities in their communities, where they can share safe infant sleep messages in culturally sensitive ways.

Findings from the mouse study offer clues on myelin-related diseases that impair the nervous system in people.

Using a mild electrical current to either boost or inhibit the brain’s own electrical impulses may one day help rehabilitate its function, according to researchers funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Students who participated in an intensive childhood education program from preschool to third grade were more likely to achieve an academic degree beyond high school, compared to a similar group that received other intervention services as children, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Over the past year, NICHD contributed to numerous scientific advances and key initiatives.

Dr. Carmen Zorrilla, who leads NICHD’s Zika in Infants and Pregnancy (ZIP) study in Puerto Rico, reports on how Hurricane Maria affected the Island’s largest hospital in San Juan.