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American Headache Society Annual Meeting
July 27, 2018
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NIH ready to fund headache, migraine research projects

SAN FRANCISCO — Researchers looking for support for studies related to headache and migraine have an excellent opportunity to secure federal funding, according to a presenter here at the American Headache Society Annual Scientific Meeting.

Currently, about 60 research projects related to migraines and headaches are underway at NIH, more than any other federal government agency in the world, Michael L. Oshinsky, PhD, pain and migraine program director at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke told attendees but encouraged attendees to continue to develop and submit research projects.

“Let me dispel a myth: headache research gets funded, it really does,” he said. “There is tremendous interest at NIH in migraine research and headache research.”

According to Oshinsky, approximately $250 million in federal funding is available to support projects that:

  • Create safer opioids, new, nonopioid analgesics, and the first wave of disease modifying agents and a research network.
  • Create, assess, and enhance pain care models, as well as techniques that integrate precision medicine principles to prevent and effectively treat chronic pain.
  • Conduct prospective studies for susceptibility and resilience factors that cause the transition from acute to chronic pain.
  • Comprehend and discuss plasticity mechanisms that advance persistent pain and (endogenous) resolution mechanisms that might negate persistent pain.
  • Conduct mechanistic trials of risk and resilience to chronic pain with “meaningful” outcome measures.
  • Ascertain what “sustains or resolves” chronic pain, and which of these components can be intrinsically and extrinsically modulated; desirable safe and effective chronic pain management and approaches for utilizing self-management strategies in chronic pain; and the two-way relationship between common comorbidities and chronic pain.
  • Comprehend mechanisms of childhood chronic pain and look into social mechanisms, psychological and biological mechanisms that form the foundation of and ongoing nature of chronic pain in disparate populations.

“This is a once-in-lifetime opportunity for researchers to identify projects [related to headaches] and request NIH funding. This amount of money doesn’t come to every field, and I implore you take advantage of this tremendous opportunity,” Oshinsky said. – by Janel Miller

Reference: Oshinsky, MH. NIH Roadmap for Migraine Research. Presented at: American Headache Society Annual Scientific Meeting; June 28-July 1, 2018; San Francisco.

For more information:

Federal Pain Research Strategy (FPRS) Research Recommendations.

https://iprcc.nih.gov/sites/default/files/iprcc/FPRS_Research_Recommendations_Final_508C.pdf. Accessed July 25, 2018.

Disclosure: Healio Family Medicine was unable to determine Oshinsky’s relevant financial disclosures prior to publication.