National Institute of Mental Health: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is one of 27 components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the United States federal government's principal biomedical and behavioral research agency. NIH is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The mission of NIMH is to reduce the burden of mental illness and behavioral disorders through research on mind, brain and behavior.

To fulfill its mission, the Institute: conducts research on mental disorders and the underlying basic science of brain and behavior; supports research on these topics at universities and hospitals around the United States; collects, analyzes, and disseminates information on the causes, occurrence, and treatment of mental illnesses; supports the training of more than 1,000 scientists to carry out basic and clinical research; and communicates information to scientists, the public, the news media, and primary care and mental health professionals about mental illnesses, the brain, mental health, and research in these areas.

Robert C. Obrien's book Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH won the Newberry Medal for children's literature in 1972. It refers to a fictionalized laboratory organization.