http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/pa-07-033.html

The purpose of this FOA is to advance the study of focal, or specific and limited, cognitive deficits experienced by persons with non-dementing CNS disorders and the secondary effects of these cognitive deficits on their health and quality of life (QoL). This FOA also promotes the development of evidence and theory-based clinical interventions and therapeutics for cognitive impairment in persons with non-dementing CNS disorders. A goal of this FOA is to enhance cross- and inter-disciplinary biobehavioral cognitive research.

For the purposes of this FOA, the following general distinction between dementing and non-dementing disorders should be used:

• Dementing disorders (e.g., Alzheimer disease, frontotemporal dementia, prion diseases, and many forms of MCI [minimal cognitive impairment]), inevitably cause global cognitive deficits and are generally thought to be progressive. Dementing disorders are thought to move affected persons through a continuum from normal cognition to generalized dementia, albeit sometimes in a slowly declining fashion.
• Non-dementing CNS disorders (e.g., epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, or ALS), the focus of this FOA, affect one or a limited number of focal or confined cognitive functions while leaving others intact, and may be non- or slowly- progressing. Non-dementing CNS disorders rarely cause global dementia, or do so only in the minority of cases, typically in the latest stages of the disease. The cognitive deficits seen in non-dementing CNS disorders may be subtle or marked, singular or clustered. They may affect a range of functions, such as decision-making, psychosocial behaviors, participation in health-seeking and health-maintaining behaviors, or occupational performance. Implicit in the definition of non-dementing CNS disorders is the existence of circumscribed targets for intervention, as well as the presence of sufficient neurofunctional reserve to make possible engagement in and benefit from treatment.