The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) will soon begin collaborative translational research in basic and clinical neuroscience.

The ICMR's initiative in this regard is significant as the last decade has witnessed great deal of progress in basic neuroscience research. This will be beneficial for the society only when the outcome of fundamental research can be translated for better diagnosis and treatment of nervous system disorders.

According to senior officials, considering the gap between basic and clinical neuroscience, there is an urgent need to bring together the investigators working in the two areas for translational research. This becomes all the more important in today’s scenario as there is rise in neurological disorders due to increased stress, changes in life style , food habits, new virus entrance , bacterial resistance, drug induced disorders, altered metabolic situations like diabetes and its neurological complications and increased environmental pollution.

Recognising the need for translational research in the field, ICMR has taken an initiative to bridge the gap between basic and clinical neuroscience by setting up a Task Force on Translational Neuroscience. This task force focuses on the collaborative research activities in the field.

The ICMR has invited  concept proposals to be jointly submitted by basic scientists and clinicians working at various recognised medical colleges, universities and other institutions in India.

The sub-topics of the research under this initiative include Neurological implications of diabetes and hypertension and related vascular pathology; neurodegenerative disorders and allied problems: identification of biomarkers for diagnosis; influence of environmental factors e.g. neurotoxins, pesticides etc; cognitive neuroscience: understand pathophysiology of mental illness, behavioral assessment of cognition, understanding underlying molecular mechanism; and hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy and other stroke related hypoxic issues: understanding pathology and molecular mechanisms , neuroplasticity , and newer research in enhancing the neural and axonal growth with neurotropic factors, nerve growth factors.

The sub-topics also include sleep disorders: primary insomnia, circadian rhythm disorders, sleep apnoea, sleep in neuropsychiatry disorder, sleep related researches non communicable diseases, psycho social issues and solutions in sleep disorders; Epilepsy: pharmacogenomics of refractory epilepsy , researches in neuronal behavior subsidence in absence seizures the neural mechanism of subsidence etc; Non infectious neuroimmunological disorders; Computational neuroscience/modeling studies to understand pathobiology; Motor neuron disorders and researches towards the molecular mechanism derangements, researches towards correction of the interim defect in the cellular transmission, mechanism, and prevention of degeneration; Muscle/neuromuscular disorders genetic, discovery of anti degenerative mechanisms of muscle fibers, nucleus, RNA and DNA related , and microsomal involvement in the process of degeneration, researches towards uplifting the defective chromosomal gene, which can be chemically interacted (not only towards detection of the mechanism, the methodology of prevention , and uplift the genetic materials towards degeneration ); and Familial neurological disorders , mechanism of prevention and cure at molecular level • Cerebral trauma/neurological malignancies/tumor, prevention of neurodegeneration in acute trauma, neuronal salvaging systems, the role of neurotropic factors like cerebrolysin (for example) etc, mechanism of neuronal post trauma degeneration; Infections of CNS, and molecular mechanism of prevention of neuronal salvaging , during infection, and related issues.