Project Grant R61MH144538
- The National Institute of Mental Health, under the Department of Health and Human Services, awarded the University of California, San Diego $199,271 on September 1, 2026, for a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled trial of home-based spaced transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in adults with treatment-resistant depression. The award funds investigation of a novel spaced tDCS protocol—involving multiple daily sessions separated by short intervals—designed to better engage...
- The National Institute of Mental Health awarded The Leland Stanford Junior University $1,066,793 under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) on April 1, 2026, to develop and validate a personalized repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) protocol for treatment-resistant depression using electrophysiological biomarkers. The award funds an R61/R33 phased study that will use early local TMS-evoked potentials (EL-TEPs)—measurements of prefrontal excitability—to...
- The National Institute of Mental Health awarded The Trustees of The University of Pennsylvania $762,440 on April 1, 2026, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to develop and validate a concurrent transcranial magnetic stimulation and functional MRI protocol for measuring the effects of continuous theta burst stimulation to the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex on anxiety-related neural and behavioral responses. The protocol will assess TMS-evoked BOLD responses and...
- The National Institute of Mental Health awarded Brigham & Women's Hospital Inc. $863,825 on August 1, 2026, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to conduct a double-blind, confirmatory efficacy trial comparing imaging-based targeting versus scalp-targeted accelerated transcranial magnetic stimulation (ATMS) for treatment-resistant major depressive disorder. The trial will enroll 120 participants to test whether imaging-targeted ATMS, using Stanford Accelerated...
- The National Institute of Mental Health awarded Ampa Inc. $3.168 million on September 15, 2025, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to develop and validate a next-generation transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) system for scalable, personalized depression treatment. Ampa is engineering a portable TMS device that replicates the efficacy of Stanford Neuromodulation Therapy (SNT)—which achieves approximately 80 percent symptom remission in five treatment days—without...
- The National Institute of Mental Health awarded The Research Foundation for The State University of New York $437,125 on July 1, 2026, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to conduct a preliminary positron emission tomography study quantifying the mechanism of transcranial magnetic stimulation in depression. The recipient, operating as Stony Brook University, will investigate the relationship between repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS)—an FDA-approved...
- The National Institute of Mental Health awarded Trustees of Dartmouth College $114,152 on September 1, 2026, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to support research determining and enhancing the cellular selectivity of transcranial magnetic stimulation using optical physiology and computational models. The funded research directly tests predictions about how transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)—an FDA-approved treatment for drug-resistant depression,...
- The National Institute of Mental Health awarded the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill $420,552 on August 3, 2026, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to identify precise brain regions and cell types associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette syndrome, and anorexia nervosa using genomic analysis. The recipient will combine the latest genome-wide association study data for these three disorders with single-cell gene expression atlases to enhance...
- The National Institute of Mental Health awarded the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill $124,128 on December 15, 2025, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to characterize trajectories of structure-function coupling in human brain networks from birth through adolescence and examine relationships to transdiagnostic psychopathology. The project leverages the UNC Early Brain Development Study, a longitudinal dataset with ten timepoints of diffusion and resting-state...
- The National Institute of Mental Health awarded Emory University $1,229,954 on April 1, 2026, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to conduct the PREVENT Study, a project grant focused on preventing chronic post-traumatic stress disorder and depression through early neurostimulation intervention. The award funds a two-year research initiative running through March 31, 2028, conducted in Georgia. The study targets emergency department patients who have experienced...
The National Institute of Mental Health awarded $1,488,310 to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on August 1, 2026, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to evaluate personalized aperiodic transcranial alternating current stimulation as a treatment for antenatal depression. The research project, titled "Personalized Aperiodic Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation as a Treatment for Antenatal Depression" (R61MH144538), develops and tests PANDA-TACS, a brain stimulation intervention that uses EEG-derived waveforms to normalize neural excitation/inhibition balance in pregnant individuals with moderate-to-severe depression. The R61 phase will randomize 60 pregnant females to receive a single session of PANDA-TACS, individual alpha frequency transcranial alternating current stimulation (IAF-TACS), or sham treatment. High-density EEG will measure aperiodic slope flattening in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex as the primary target engagement outcome. This represents a paradigm shift from narrowband, rhythm-based stimulation to broadband, aperiodic modulation designed to address excitation/inhibition imbalance across multiple frequency bands, particularly relevant to depression in the pregnant brain. Work is performed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The period of performance extends from August 1, 2026, through July 31, 2028. The award is structured as a Project Grant, the primary assistance type for NIMH research funding.
Mod # | Description | ReasonForModification | Federal Obligation | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not listed | $1.5m | 7/31/26 |