Physicians Committee Calls for Greater Investment in Human-Based Research at NIMH

In April 2025, the NIH announced an initiative prioritizing human-based research, in part by providing greater support for new approach methodologies (NAMs). In August 2025, the NIH leadership reinforced this priority through a unified funding strategy intended to guide research investments across the agency. The Physicians Committee has encouraged NIMH to align itself with these promising efforts by transitioning funds away from animal experiments that have failed to deliver improvements to human health outcomes.

This transition is particularly important in mental health research, where few advancements have been made in the past half century. Although the safety and side effects of psychiatric drugs have improved, many widely used treatments are based on discoveries made decades ago.

Rather than subjecting nonhuman animals to painful and deadly experiments—just to find out that these experiments don’t translate to human biology—researchers can investigate questions of neurobiology and pathophysiology using advanced human-based methods. Technologies such as positron emission tomography, ultra-high field magnetic resonance imaging, and magnetic resonance spectroscopy allow researchers to study brain activity, receptor targets, neuroinflammation, and synaptic density directly in living patients. Additionally, patient-derived brain organoids can help scientists examine cellular mechanisms involved in mental illness. Combined, these methods cover the entire range of experimental questions, from cellular and molecular mechanisms to systems and behavioral level outcomes.

By directing more funding toward these methods, NIMH can help accelerate our understanding of the causes of mental illness, about which there remains a great deal to be discovered, and drive progress toward new therapeutics.

In our comment, the Physicians Committee also reiterated its longstanding request that NIMH end its support for the forced swim and tail suspension tests—two widely criticized animal experiments that attempt to model depression by forcing animals into inescapable and highly stressful situations. As regulatory and scientific bodies around the world continue to review these procedures, they are taking action by banning future funding for these tests.

By eliminating its support for failed animal experiments like the forced swim test, NIMH will have more resources to allocate toward science that is truly revolutionary and leading the way forward in mental health research. We will continue working with NIMH and other federal agencies to promote practical steps that can improve the quality and reliability of mental health research.