Mind and Body Research Information for Researchers

Definition

As described in NCCAM’s Strategic Plan, mind and body research encompasses a wide variety of interventions which are based in physical procedures or techniques administered or taught to others by a trained practitioner or teacher. From a research perspective, these interventions, practices, and disciplines all share certain characteristics that create similar challenges in designing rigorous and definitive clinical investigations of their benefit and safety. For example, (1) it is generally difficult or impossible to mask practitioners and/or participants involved in clinical research, (2) claims about benefit often relate to subjective clinical outcomes, (3) in practice, the interventions are often individualized, or they are complicated procedures that are difficult to systematize or characterize fully, and (4) means to objectively measure the impact of the interventions on important biological processes are frequently lacking.

Research Priorities

Although many mind and body interventions are widely used or offered by practitioners, strong evidence about whether they are safe and offer clinical benefit is often lacking. The NCCAM Strategic Plan highlights three strategies for advancing research on mind and body interventions:

Harness state-of-the art technologies
Support translational research
Support clinical evaluation and intervention studies

Emerging evidence of promising clinical effects of many mind and body approaches points toward important opportunities to advance the science and practice of symptom management and health promotion. In many cases the evidence is strengthened by an intriguing and growing body of basic and clinical research employing the tools and technology of the fields of neuroscience, psychoneuroimmunology, psychology, behavioral medicine, physical medicine, and biomechanics. Addressing the scientific and operational challenges confronting the study of promising mind and body interventions requires continued efforts to foster multidisciplinary collaboration aimed at engaging the expertise and experience of complementary and alternative medicine practitioners and utilizing the tools and technologies of a variety of scientific disciplines.

Developing insight into biological, physiological effects and mechanisms of action of mind and body interventions is critically important in developing translational research tools to design and execute maximally informative clinical research. It is a crucial component of the scientific evidence base guiding clinical practice, public use and has the potential to inform other fields of biomedical research.

Rigorous study of all clinical interventions requires the use of a well-established methodology. Large clinical studies are an essential component of the evidence base regarding clinical efficacy or effectiveness. To implement such studies, the magnitude and nature of treatment effects must be estimated in preliminary studies, treatment algorithms must be developed and validated, and feasibility of accrual must be established. Methods need to be in place to measure consistency and fidelity of protocol implementation, practitioner variability, and adherence of participants to the regimens being studied. In addition, well-characterized and meaningful clinical and laboratory outcome measures are needed to fully determine safety, and to definitively measure benefit or lack thereof.

NCCAM Funding Opportunities

NCCAM issues specific funding announcements for narrow areas of high priority. However, we will accept mind and body research applications through a number of investigator-initiated grant mechanisms. These include the Parent R01 and R21 announcements, the Omnibus SBIR (R43/R44) and STTR (R41/R42) announcements, and the various training mechanisms including fellowships (F), mentored training (K), and institutional training (T).

Examples of Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) related to mind and body interventions include:

Centers of Excellence for Research on CAM (P01)
Healthy Habits: Timing for Developing Sustainable Healthy Behaviors in Children and Adolescents (R01)
Biology of Manual Therapies (R01)
Mechanisms, Models, Measurement, and Management in Pain Research (R01)
Mechanisms, Measurement, and Management of Pain in Aging: from Molecular to Clinical (R01)

View all active funding opportunity announcements (FOAs)

Past NCCAM Research

Research Spotlights—Review these selected summaries of published NCCAM research
Search NCCAM-funded projects in RePORTER

NCCAM Contact Information

You may find it helpful to discuss your proposed research with an NCCAM staff member prior to submitting a grant application. Each program staff member is responsible for coordinating scientific research portfolios in various scientific areas.

Review scientific portfolio areas and contact an NCCAM Program Officer.

If you have general questions about mind and body research funding, please contact: