The
National Center on Sleep Disorders Research (NCSDR) was established
within the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) via a provision
of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Revitalization Act of 1993.
The NCSDR was mandated to:
- Conduct and support research,
training, health information dissemination, and other activities with
respect to a basic understanding of sleep and sleep disorders, including
research on biological and circadian rhythms, chronobiology, and other
sleep-related topics.
- Coordinate the activities
of the NCSDR with similar activities of other Federal agencies, including
the other components of the National Institutes of Health, and similar
activities of other public and nonprofit entities.
The legislation further provided
for establishment of a Sleep Disorders Research Advisory Board and for
development of a National Sleep Disorders Research Plan. The first Plan
was released in 1996. It was broad and multidisciplinary, and its goal
was "to improve the health, safety, and productivity of Americans
by promoting basic, clinical, and applied research on sleep and sleep
disorders." The Plan called for strengthening existing sleep research
programs, creating new programs to address important research gaps and
opportunities, applying state-of-the-art techniques and technologies
to the study of sleep, and developing strategies for better understanding
daytime sleepiness and reducing its negative impact on society. The
Plan recognized that responding effectively to its research recommendations
would require a multidisciplinary approach including all types of research
(e.g., basic, clinical, applied) and research methods.
Much has changed since 1996.
Stimulated in significant part by the 1996 Plan, sleep research funding
by NIH has doubled. New research and new knowledge have vastly expanded
the array of questions to be addressed, and new technologies have yielded
new tools and mechanisms for a highly interdisciplinary broad-based
approach to sleep research. It is in this context that revision of the
1996 National Sleep Disorders Research Plan was deemed necessary. The
2003 Revision summarizes the specific sleep research achievements since
the 1996 Plan, identifies present gaps in our knowledge and understanding,
and concludes with prioritized recommendations for future research.
As with the 1996 Plan, the 2003 Plan is envisioned not as a blueprint,
but as a dynamic springboard for the creativity of individual scientists,
whose insights and initiative underlie research progress. We are confident
that these recommendations will contribute in substantial ways to advancing
the frontiers of biomedical knowledge related to sleep, enabling timely
diagnosis and effective treatment, and improving the health of our nation
through community-based public health education and intervention programs.
Elias Zerhouni, MD
Director, National Institutes of Health |
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