Helene M. Langevin, M.D.
Director, NCCIH
Helene M. Langevin, M.D., is director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH).
As NCCIH director, Dr. Langevin oversees the Federal government’s lead agency for research on the fundamental science, usefulness, and safety of complementary and integrative health approaches and their roles in improving health and health care. With an annual budget of approximately $150 million, NCCIH funds and conducts research to help answer important scientific and public health questions within the context of whole person health. The Center also coordinates and collaborates with other research institutes and Federal programs on research into complementary and integrative health. She is currently the chair of the Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee.
Prior to coming to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2018, Dr. Langevin worked at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, jointly based at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston. Dr. Langevin served as director of the Osher Center and professor-in-residence of medicine at Harvard Medical School from 2012 to 2018. She also previously served as professor of neurological sciences at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine, Burlington, Vermont.
Over her career, Dr. Langevin’s research interests have centered around the role of connective tissue in chronic musculoskeletal pain and the mechanisms of acupuncture, manual, and movement-based therapies. Her more recent work has focused on the effects of stretching on inflammation resolution mechanisms within connective tissue. She is a fellow of the American College of Physicians.
Dr. Langevin received an M.D. degree from McGill University, Montreal. She completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in neurochemistry at the MRC Neurochemical Pharmacology Unit in Cambridge, England, and a residency in internal medicine and fellowship in endocrinology and metabolism at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.
Selected Publications
- Langevin HM, Churchill DL, Fox JR, Badger GJ, Garra BS, Krag MH. Biomechanical response to acupuncture needling in humans. Journal of Applied Physiology. 2001;91(6):2471-2478.
- Langevin HM, Churchill DL, Cipolla MJ. Mechanical signaling through connective tissue: A mechanism for the therapeutic effect of acupuncture. The FASEB Journal. 2001;15(12):2275-2282.
- Langevin HM, Bouffard NA, Badger GJ, Iatridis JC and Howe AK. Dynamic fibroblast cytoskeletal response to subcutaneous tissue stretch ex vivo and in vivo. American Journal of Physiology-Cell Physiology. 2005;288(3):C747-C756.
- Langevin HM, Bouffard NA, Badger GJ, Churchill DL, Howe AK. Subcutaneous tissue fibroblast cytoskeletal remodeling induced by acupuncture: Evidence for a mechanotransduction-based mechanism. Journal of Cellular Physiology. 2006;207(3):767-774.
- Langevin HM, Stevens-Tuttle D, Fox JR, Badger GJ, Bouffard NA, Krag MH, Wu J, Henry SM. Ultrasound evidence of altered lumbar connective tissue structure in human subjects with chronic low back pain. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders. 2009;10:151.
- Langevin HM, Fox JR, Koptiuch C, Badger GJ, Greenan-Naumann AC, Bouffard NA, Konofagou EE, Lee WN, Triano JJ, Henry SM. Reduced thoracolumbar fascia shear strain in human chronic low back pain. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders. 2011;12:203.
- Corey SM, Vizzard MA, Bouffard NA, Badger GJ, Langevin HM. Stretching of the back improves gait, mechanical sensitivity and connective tissue inflammation in a rodent model. PLOS ONE. 2012;7(1):e29831.
- Berrueta L, Muskaj I, Olenich S, Butler, T, Badger JG, Colas R, Spite M, Serhan CN, Langevin HM. Stretching impacts inflammation resolution in connective tissue. Journal of Cellular Physiology. 2016;231(7):1621-1627.
- Berrueta L, Bergholz J, Munoz D, Muskaj I, Badger JG, Shukla A, Kim HJ, Zhao J, Langevin HM. Stretching reduces tumor growth in mouse breast cancer model. Scientific Reports. 2018;8(1):7864.
- Langevin HM. Fascia mobility, proprioception, and myofascial pain. Life (Basel). 2021;11(7):668.
- Langevin HM. Moving the complementary and integrative health research field toward whole person health. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. 2021;27(8):623-626.