Press Releases

NCCIH presents the 2020 Stephen E. Straus Distinguished Lecture in the Science of Complementary Therapies: “All Health Is Not Created Equal: Where You Live Matters” by Shannon N. Zenk, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.N., F.A.A.N., Director of the National Institute of Nursing Research.

In a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study involving both mice and patients who are part of an NIH Clinical Center trial, researchers discovered that a gene, called PIEZO2, may be responsible for the powerful urge to urinate that we normally feel several times a day. The results, published in Nature, suggest that the gene helps at least two different types of cells in the body sense when our bladders are full and need to be emptied. These results also expand the growing list of newly discovered senses under the gene’s control.

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, National Institutes of Health, announces selection of four new members of the National Advisory Council for Complementary and Integrative Health: Robert Coghill, Ph.D., Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center; Margaret (Meg) Haney, Ph.D., Columbia University Irving Medical Center; Girardin Jean-Louis, Ph.D., New York University Grossman School of Medicine; and Karen Sherman, Ph.D., M.P.H., University of Washington and Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute.

“Novel Approaches at the Intersection of Mental Health and Pain” will be highlighted in the spring 2020 Integrative Medicine Research Lecture Series sponsored by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH).

Study finds that patients experiencing new chronic musculoskeletal pain are prescribed opioids more often than physical therapy, counseling, and other nonpharmacologic approaches.

A new study in mice, conducted by NCCIH researchers, uncovered a previously unknown role that the central amygdala can play in upgrading or downgrading pain signals in the brain’s circuitry.

The National Institutes of Health awarded 93 grants through its High-Risk, High-Reward Research Program that will fund highly innovative biomedical or behavioral research proposed by extraordinarily creative scientists.

To reverse the opioid crisis that continues to grip the nation, the National Institutes of Health has awarded $945 million in total fiscal year 2019 funding for grants, contracts and cooperative agreements across 41 states through the Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative or NIH HEAL Initiative. 

The National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) announces the selection of five individuals to serve as members of the National Advisory Council for Complementary and Integrative Health (NACCIH). This is the principal advisory body to NCCIH, the lead Federal agency for research on complementary and integrative health.

This press release highlights new NCCIH research awards totaling approximately $3 million to investigate the potential pain-relieving properties and mechanisms of actions of phytochemicals in cannabis.