Mental Health of Transgender Children Who Have Socially Transitioned

While it has been shown in many studies that transgender youth frequently struggle with significant emotional-behavioral problems, the million dollar question behind this association is the degree to which these symptoms are driven by the intense stigma, lack of acceptance, and even outright maltreatment that many of these children and adolescents suffer.  This question is […]

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Anxiety Risk with Stimulants Overstated

There is a widely held concern that psychostimulants when used to treat ADHD can induce or exacerbate anxiety.  This belief has led many clinicians to hesitate about using stimulants in patients who already suffer from high level of anxiety, prompting some prescribers to try, as first-line agents, nonstimulant medications that supposedly have less risk but […]

Patches of Brain Disorganization Identified in Autism

Characterizing the precise pathology in autistic spectrum disorders, let alone other psychiatric disorders, has remained challenging. Postmortem studies of actual brain tissue are rare but have the potential to provide important clues regarding specific abnormalities in neurodevelopment that are not detectable through other means such as neuroimaging. This major study published in the New England […]

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Treatment Gains Persist in Childhood Anxiety Disorders

The Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study (CAMS) represents one of the largest and most comprehensive studies to date on the comparative efficacy of different types of treatment for anxiety disorders. In the original NIMH funded study, a total of 488 youth with various combinations of separation, generalized, or social anxiety disorder were randomized to treatment groups […]

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Prenatal Folic Acid Linked to Lower Rate of Autism

(NOTE:  This study has received a lot of press and coverage today but read on to gain new insights into important details of the study that may have influenced the results and interpretation) The usefulness of folic acid supplication to reduce the risk of neural tube defects is well known.  A new study from Norway […]

Talking with Children About the Connecticut School Shootings

All over the country people are horrified at the shootings that happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Our hearts go out to all the families affected by this tragedy.  While many facts of the shooting remain to be learned, tonight millions of parents will do their best to try and talk to their children about what happened.  […]

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