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- Study Identifies Three Effective Treatments for Childhood Anxiety Disorders
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October 30, 2008
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Press Release
Treatment that combines a certain type of psychotherapy with an antidepressant medication is most likely to help children with anxiety disorders, but each of the treatments alone is also effective.
- Brain’s Wiring Stunted, Lopsided in Childhood Onset Schizophrenia
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October 30, 2008
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Science Update
Growth of the brain’s long distance connections, called white matter, is stunted and lopsided in children who develop psychosis before puberty, NIMH researchers have discovered.
- Task Force Finds Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Effective for Children and Adolescents Exposed to Trauma
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October 29, 2008
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Science Update
Individual and group cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) were the only interventions found effective in an evaluation of seven commonly-used approaches to reduce the psychological harm to youth who experience trauma.
- Lack of Eye Contact May Predict Level of Social Disability in Two-Year Olds with Autism
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October 23, 2008
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Science Update
By age 2, children with autism show unusual patterns of eye contact compared with typically developing children. This symptom appears to be related to a child's level of impairment and may be a useful biomarker for diagnosing autism at an earlier age.
- New Study to Evaluate Ways to Control Metabolic Side Effects of Antipsychotics
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October 1, 2008
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Science Update
A new NIMH-funded grant will examine ways to control the metabolic side effects associated with the use of the newer atypical antipsychotic medications in children with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
- Newer Antipsychotics No Better Than Older Drug in Treating Child and Adolescent Schizophrenia
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September 15, 2008
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Press Release
Two newer atypical antipsychotic medications were no more effective than an older conventional antipsychotic in treating child and adolescent schizophrenia and may lead to more metabolic side effects.
- Family-Focused Therapy Effective in Treating Depressive Episodes of Bipolar Youth
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September 1, 2008
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Science Update
Adolescents with bipolar disorder who received a nine-month course of family-focused therapy (FFT) recovered more quickly from depressive episodes and stayed free of depression for longer periods than a control group.
- Antipsychotic Does Not Harm—and May Improve—Cognitive Skills in Children with Autism
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August 27, 2008
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Science Update
The atypical antipsychotic medication risperidone (Risperdal) does not negatively affect cognitive skills of children with autism, and may lead to improvements.
- Common Mechanisms May Underlie Autism’s Seemingly Diverse Mutations
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July 10, 2008
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Press Release
Many of the seemingly disparate mutations recently discovered in autism may share common underlying mechanisms, say researchers supported in part by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The mutations may disrupt specific genes that are vital to the developing brain, and which are turned on and off by experience-triggered neuronal activity.
- Abnormal Surge in Brain Development Occurs in Teens and Young Adults with Schizophrenia
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July 8, 2008
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Science Update
Schizophrenia may occur, in part, because brain development goes awry during adolescence and young adulthood, when the brain is eliminating some connections between cells as a normal part of maturation, results of a study suggest. The new report appears online July 8, 2008 in Molecular Psychiatry.
