Investigating the Gut-Brain Axis for Applications to Brain and Mental Health

TMCity welcomes proposals that seek to understand and/or utilize the gut microbiome as a path toward improving brain and mental health.

Donor Name: TMCity Foundation

State: All States

County: All Counties

Type of Grant: Grant

Deadline: 07/01/2022

Size of the Grant: Up to $250,000

Details:

They are looking for proposals that address the gaps in our knowledge of how the gut affects brain health, with the goal of harnessing that knowledge to bring about measurable improvements to the prevention and treatment of neuropsychiatric diseases. In other words, their aim is to understand and improve brain health by advancing their understanding of the gut and its relationship to the brain. Acceptable proposals will address pressing questions at the nexus of basic gut microbiome, neuroscience, clinical neuropsychiatric best practices, and urgent public health. Any area of brain health will be considered.

Goals

This RFP seeks to address the gaps in their knowledge of how the gut affects brain health, with the goal of harnessing that knowledge to bring about measurable improvements to their prevention and treatment of neuropsychiatric diseases. In other words, their aim is to understand and improve brain health by advancing their understanding of the gut and its relationship to the brain. Acceptable proposals include (but are not limited to) any that seek to:

• Elucidate the key metabolites, biochemical mechanisms, and physiological pathways by which the gut causally affects the brain
• Demonstrate the gut biome’s role in neuropsychiatric disease pathology, especially in its etiology
• Understand how external factors such as probiotics or lifestyle factors can affect the brain via the gut, and/or how these factors interact with medication to moderate its effect
• Understand how early life environments and experience shape gut and brain health
• Quantify the concepts of a healthy versus unhealthy gut with respect to cognitive or mental health, especially with age or sex as a covariate
• Understand the role of both gut diversity and specific gut composition to healthy functioning of the gut-brain axis
• Understand the role of genetics to gut and brain health, especially to how an individual’s gut responds to both lifestyle factors and to medication and its subsequent impact to brain health
• Develop tests to quickly, efficiently and/or cheaply measure the state of a patient’s gut, e.g., through identifying relevant biomarkers to serve as proxies for gut health
• Identify gut biomarkers to aid in and help standardize clinical diagnosis of complex neurologic/neuropsychiatric disorders such as dementia, autism, or depression.
• Standardize clinical practice to maximize gut health at different stages in life as related to brain health, e.g., as related to maternal and neonatal care
• Replicate relevant previous small studies on a larger basis to confirm findings
• Replicate relevant previous short studies to longer longitudinal ones to confirm the linkage of gut microbial changes to physiological changes
• Duplicate relevant previous results in animal models in humans through clinical trials
• Demonstrate statistically significant changes in cognitive or mental health through use of gut altering techniques (such as fecal transplants) and substances (such as probiotics)

While Alzheimer’s disease/dementia and depression have been used as example areas of application in this RFP, any area of brain health is welcome as a focus of a proposal.

Funding Information

• TMCity Foundation will make an expected 1-3 grants, up to $250,000.

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicants must be based at a U.S. academic research organization, a not-for-profit or government body, or a private-sector organization and must be able to accept TMCity Foundation’s standard grant conditions.
• Applications should include a proposal, a budget, and a Gantt chart. The proposal should clearly indicate: 1) the problem being addressed, 2) the design of the study, 3) the rationale for the effectiveness of the study to address the problem, and 4) any previous research the study is based upon, both from the literature and from personal ongoing research.

For more information, visit TMCity Foundation.