The top five most costly disorders for American health care are cancer, trauma, heart conditions, asthma, and mental health disorders. Research funding for mental health and emergency psychiatry disorders significantly lags behind the other four problems. Barriers for patient participation in research for this population exist and may be unique. Any medical research requires the consent of the patient, or a surrogate for the patient. As research of neuropsychiatric disorders involves patients with illnesses that affect cognition, decision-making capacity and awareness, the consent process can pose interesting and potentially ethical challenges. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is the primary federal agency funding basic and clinical research for serious mental illness (SMI) disorders. Suicide is the tenth leading case of death in the United States. Funding of and research into suicide is necessary to provide measures and interventions which effectively reduce risk of suicide.