National Institutes of Health (NIH)

The National Institutes of Health is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and is the nation’s medical research agency located in Bethesda, Maryland.

The main goal of NIH is to constantly pursue scientific knowledge about living systems and use that knowledge to continuously improve human health. The organization consists of 27 different institutes and centers that each research certain aspects of the human body and development, health, diseases, and disorders, and the effects the environment has on all of these. 

The National Institutes of Health awards more than 80 percent of its funding in grants to researchers at medical schools, universities, and other research institutions across the country and around the world. A Public Access Policy requires that anyone who receives NIH funds posts their research findings on PubMed Central, an online archive of biomedical publications and reports. This is to ensure that the public has access to research data and conclusions.

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke is one of the 27 institutes and centers of the National Institutes of Health and is dedicated to funding the research of neurological disorders and stroke, which can affect people of any age. Additionally, scientists are attempting to measure changes in the health and quality of life for spinal stenosis patients by comparing the effectiveness of non-surgical and surgical treatments for the condition. Other studies are exploring neuralgia (nerve pain) and why some sensations that normally do not cause pain are painful. The organization is also researching the effectiveness of artificial spinal disc replacement surgery for those with degenerative disc disease. During artificial disc replacement surgery, a quarter-sized metal and plastic disc replaces a damaged disc. According to the research that NINDS has conducted thus far, the recovery time for the disc replacement surgery is faster and has fewer complications than other types of open back surgery.