Rate of Bipolar Symptoms Among Teens Approaches That of Adults

The rate of bipolar symptoms among U.S. teens is nearly as high as the rate found among adults, according to NIMH-funded research published online ahead of print on May 7, 2012, in the Archives of General Psychiatry. Background Nationally representative data indicate that about 3.9 percent of adults meet criteria for bipolar disorder in their lifetime, and 2.6 percent meet criteria in a given year.1 However, limited data exist on the rates of bipolar disorder among adolescents, despite strong evidence indicating that bipolar disorder tends to emerge in adolescence or early adulthood. Kathleen Merikangas, Ph.D., of NIMH, and colleagues analyzed data from the NIMH-funded National Comorbidity Survey-Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A), a nationally representative, face-to-face survey of more than 10,000 teens ages 13 to 18. Using criteria established by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV), the researchers assessed teens for the hallmark symptoms of bipolar disorder—mania and depression. They also examined the rates of teens who showed evidence of mania alone. Results of the Study The researchers found that 2.5 percent of youth met criteria for bipolar disorder in their lifetime, and 2.2 percent met criteria within a given year. About 1.7 percent reported having mania alone within their lifetime, and 1.3 percent reporting having mania alone within a given year. Rates increased with age—about 2 percent of younger teens reported bipolar disorder symptoms, whereas 3.1 percent of older teens did. Significance The findings reveal that the prevalence of bipolar disorder in adolescents approaches that of adults, underscoring the widely held belief that the disorder first appears in youth. In addition, the presence of mania alone suggests that mania without depression should receive greater attention when evaluating mood disorders in teens, especially since it may precede or be associated with behavioral problems such as substance use disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to the researchers. What’s Next The researchers highlighted the need to follow up with these youth, to see if they continue to manifest bipolar symptoms as they age. More research is needed on the overlap of mania with other emotional and behavioral disorders, as well as the core features and risk factors for the development of mania in adolescents social worker continuing education Citation 1 Merikangas K, Cui L, Kattan G, Carlson G, Youngstrom E, Angst J. Mania with and without depression in a community sample of U.S. adolescents. Archives of General Psychiatry. Online ahead of print May 7, 2012.

Phase III trial of dapivirine ring begins in Africa: New HIV prevention approach for women

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 24, 2012 – A large clinical trial testing the long-term safety and effectiveness of a new approach for preventing HIV in women – a vaginal ring used once a month – is now underway in Africa, researchers announced today at the XIX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2012)Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors Continuing Education ASPIRE – A Study to Prevent Infection with a Ring for Extended Use – is a Phase III trial evaluating a vaginal ring that contains dapivirine, a potent antiretroviral (ARV) drug originally developed to treat HIV. The ring slowly releases dapivirine to cells inside the vagina throughout the one-month period that it's worn, potentially giving women discreet, long-acting protection against HIV transmitted through sex. Nearly 3,500 women in Africa will take part in ASPIRE, which is being led by the Microbicide Trials Network (MTN) and funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institute of Mental Health, which are part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The Makerere University-Johns Hopkins University Research HIV Clinical Trial Unit in Kampala, Uganda this week began screening women interested in joining the study. A second site, the Emavundleni Research Center at the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, University of Cape Town, South Africa, should be ready to screen potential participants next week. The MTN hopes to conduct ASPIRE at a total of 17 sites in Malawi, Uganda, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. A second trial, The Ring Study, is being conducted in parallel with ASPIRE. The Ring Study is being led by the International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM), which developed the dapivirine ring, and will involve about 1,650 women. IPM has already enrolled more nearly 400 participants at trial sites in South Africa since the study launched in April. The Ring Study will also be conducted in Rwanda and is expected to start there in August. The two sister studies are the first effectiveness trials of a vaginal ring for HIV prevention. Vaginal rings, which are flexible products that fit comfortably high up inside the vagina and are seldom felt by either partner during sex, are already used in many countries as a way to deliver hormonal contraception. ASPIRE and The Ring Study are also the first large-scale prevention trials involving an ARV other than tenofovir or a tenofovir combination. For this reason, and because it is used for a month at a time, the dapivirine ring is seen as an alternative to tenofovir gel used daily or at the time of sex, and oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which involves the use of a daily ARV tablet – tenofovir or Truvada (tenofovir plus emtricitabine). "As a field, we must continue to develop new strategies for HIV prevention. No single approach will be right for every person. In the same way there is a range of effective choices when it comes to birth control, women must have multiple effective options for HIV prevention," explained Jared Baeten, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Washington in Seattle, who is leading ASPIRE with Thesla Palanee, Ph.D., of the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute (WRHI) in Johannesburg, South Africa. "The most effective HIV prevention product can only work if it's used consistently. The recent PrEP and microbicide studies have taught us that using a product every day can be challenging for many people. A sustained delivery product like a vaginal ring can release an antiretroviral drug in the vagina over an entire month following a single insertion. We think this will be an attractive option for many women, and we hope that women in ASPIRE will like the ring and use it consistently," added Sharon Hillier, Ph.D., principal investigator of the MTN, which is based at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Magee-Womens Research Institute. ASPIRE is designed to enroll approximately 3,476 HIV-negative women between the ages of 18 and 45 who will be randomly assigned to use either the dapivirine ring or a placebo ring that looks the same but contains no active drug. Participants will be instructed how to insert and remove the ring, which they will replace every four weeks over the course of the one to two years they are in the study. All participants will receive ongoing HIV risk reduction counseling, condoms and diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). The results of ASPIRE, which are expected late 2014 or early 2015, together with results of The Ring Study, as well as smaller, supporting studies, will form the basis of an application that IPM plans to submit to regulatory authorities seeking approval of the dapivirine ring for widespread use. "Through IPM's partnership with MTN and NIH, we are able to conduct two pivotal studies in parallel and get the answers we need quickly," said Zeda Rosenberg, Sc.D., chief executive officer of IPM, a nonprofit product development partnership based in Silver Spring, Md. "Regulators usually require results of two large-scale Phase III trials, along with data from other supporting studies, to approve a product for use. This unique collaboration aims to help us make dapivirine ring available as quickly as possible to women in developing countries if it is proven effective and safe for long-term use." Of the more than 34 million people living with HIV, half are women; and women account for 59 percent of adults with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, where unprotected heterosexual intercourse is the primary driver of the epidemic. Young women are especially vulnerable; women ages 15 to 24 are up to five times more likely to become infected with HIV than young men. Efforts to promote abstinence, monogamy and the use of male condoms have not been enough to stop the HIV epidemic nor are these practical methods in many settings. IPM is developing dapivirine for use as a microbicide through a royalty-free licensing agreement with Janssen R&D Ireland (previously Tibotec Pharmaceuticals), one of the Janssen pharmaceutical companies of Johnson & Johnson. Dapivirine, also known as TMC-120, belongs to a class of ARVs called non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs) that bind to and disable HIV's reverse transcriptase enzyme, a protein that HIV needs to make copies of itself. In addition to the Uganda and Cape Town, South Africa sites, ASPIRE will be conducted at the following MTN-affiliated trial sites, pending all necessary approvals: In Malawi – the University of North Carolina Clinical Research Site in Lilongwe and the College of Medicine-Johns Hopkins University Research Project at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre; in South Africa – the Medical Research Council of South Africa in KwaZulu-Natal (seven sites), the eThekwini site for the Centre for the AIDS Programme in Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) in Durban; WRHI in Johannesburg; in Zambia – the Centre for Infectious Diseases Research in Zambia in Lusaka; and, in Zimbabwe – the University of Zimbabwe-University of California, San Francisco HIV Prevention Trials Unit in Harare (three sites). ### More information about ASPIRE is available at http://www.mtnstopshiv.org/news/studies/mtn020 and about The Ring Study at http://www.ipmglobal.org/the-ring-study. About the Microbicide Trials Network The Microbicide Trials Network (MTN) is an HIV/AIDS clinical trials network established in 2006 by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases with co-funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Mental Health, all components of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Based at Magee-Womens Research Institute and the University of Pittsburgh, the MTN brings together international investigators and community and industry partners who are devoted to preventing or reducing the sexual transmission of HIV through the development and evaluation of products applied topically to mucosal surfaces or administered orally.

Wayne State develops better understanding of memory retrieval between children and adults

DETROIT — Neuroscientists from Wayne State University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are taking a deeper look into how the brain mechanisms for memory retrieval differ between adults and children. While the memory systems are the same in many ways, the researchers have learned that crucial functions with relevance to learning and education differ. The team's findings were published on July 17, 2012, in the Journal of Neuroscience. According to lead author Noa Ofen, Ph.D., assistant professor in WSU's Institute of Gerontology and Department of Pediatrics, cognitive ability, including the ability to learn and remember new information, dramatically changes between childhood and adulthood. This ability parallels with dramatic changes that occur in the structure and function of the brain during these periods. In the study, "The Development of Brain Systems Associated with Successful Memory Retrieval of Scenes," Ofen and her collaborative team tested the development of neural underpinnings of memory from childhood to young adulthood. The team of researchers exposed participants to pictures of scenes and then showed them the same scenes mixed with new ones and asked them to judge whether each picture was presented earlier. Participants made retrieval judgments while researchers collected images of their brains with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Using this method, the researchers were able to see how the brain remembers. "Our results suggest that cortical regions related to attentional or strategic control show the greatest developmental changes for memory retrieval," said Ofen. The researchers said that older participants used the cortical regions more than younger participants when correctly retrieving past experiences. "We were interested to see whether there are changes in the connectivity of regions in the brain that support memory retrieval," Ofen added. "We found changes in connectivity of memory-related regions. In particular, the developmental change in connectivity between regions was profound even without a developmental change in the recruitment of those regions, suggesting that functional brain connectivity is an important aspect of developmental changes in the brain." This study marks the first time that the development of connectivity within memory systems in the brain has been tested, and the results suggest that the brain continues to rearrange connections to achieve adult-like performance during development. Ofen and her research team plan to continue research in this area, focused on modeling brain network connectivity, and applying these methods to study abnormal brain development continuing education for mfts ### This research was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health; grant number R01-MH-080344. Wayne State University is one of the nation's pre-eminent public research institutions in an urban setting. Through its multidisciplinary approach to research and education, and its ongoing collaboration with government, industry and other institutions, the university seeks to enhance economic growth and improve the quality of life in the city of Detroit, state of Michigan and throughout the world. For more information about research at Wayne State University, visit http://www.research.wayne.edu.

Many Youths with Autism Not Employed or In College 2 Years After High School

Young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are less likely to have a job or be enrolled in any type of postsecondary education when compared to peers with a speech/learning impairment or learning disability, according to a study partially funded by NIMH. Published in the June issue of Pediatrics, the findings emphasize the need to improve transition planning for students with ASD before they leave high school. Background Past studies on post-high school activities of youths with ASD were limited by having relatively few participants, lacking adequate diversity in the study population, or studying a narrow set of outcomes. As a result, it was unclear if those studies gave accurate descriptions of the ASD youth population as a whole, and if so, how broadly any findings could be applied. Using nationally representative data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2, Paul Shattuck, Ph.D., of Washington University, and colleagues assessed the activities of about 1,900 youths identified as having autism, speech/language impairment, learning disability, or mental retardation between the years 2007-2008. Data were provided by the youths’ parents or guardians or from the youths themselves if they were able to understand and answer the survey questions. All participants had previously received special education services and were no longer in high school. Results of the Study Compared to youths in other disability categories, those with ASD were less likely to have a job after high school. Youths with ASD were also less likely to be enrolled in any type of schooling than youths with speech/learning impairment or learning disability, but more likely than youths with mental retardation. In the first 2 years after leaving high school, youths with ASD were at significant risk of being completely disengaged, meaning to not be employed or in any postsecondary education. The participation rates, with rounded percentages, are summarized in the table below: *Additional data on youths’ participation in vocational or technical education showed a similar distribution social worker continuing education Youths from low-income families were much more likely to become disengaged, regardless of the severity of their disability. More impaired youths were also at greater risk of disengagement. Significance The results indicate that young adults with ASD experience unique challenges in finding work or enrolling in appropriate educational opportunities after leaving high school. In a related paper, also partially supported by NIMH funding, Dr. Shattuck noted that “the evidence base on services for adults with ASD is inadequate for informing policy and program decisions to meet the needs of this growing population.” In this context, the researchers emphasized the need to improve transition planning for youths with ASD or other special education needs as they prepare to leave high school. What’s Next According to the researchers, as more and more children are diagnosed with ASD, the demand for specialized adult services, jobs, and education will also continue to grow. Supporting targeted initiatives such as JobTIPS and further research on how to reduce or prevent disengagement will help inform efforts to better serve this population. References Shattuck PT, Narendorf SC, Cooper B, Sterzing PR, Wagner M, Taylor JL. Postsecondary Education and Employment Among Youth With an Autism Spectrum Disorder. Pediatrics. 2012 Jun;129(6):1042-9. Epub 2012 May 14. PubMed PMID: 22585766; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3362908. Shattuck PT, Roux AM, Hudson LE, Taylor JL, Maenner MJ, Trani JF. Services for adults with an autism spectrum disorder. Can J Psychiatry. 2012 May;57(5):284-91. PubMed PMID: 22546060. Related funding: R01-MH086489

Social Brain Circuits Disrupted in Autism

In a study of high-functioning adolescents with an autism spectrum disorder, scientists using functional brain imaging have found reduced connectivity selectively affecting parts of the brain that form circuits supporting social behavior. The findings sharpen the focus of previous reports suggesting disruptions in connectivity across the brain in autism, and offer a target for future studies to search for the genes that shape the development of these circuits and how they become disrupted in the disorder. Background Difficulties with communication and social interactions are central features of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and are universally present in those with an ASD. In an effort to determine how brain function is disrupted in autism, scientists have used noninvasive functional brain imaging to explore connectivity in the brain—the extent to which patterns of activity in functionally related parts of the brain correlate with each other. Scientists increasingly see the brain and its disorders in terms of circuits, with a given behavior engaging multiple centers across the brain, functioning in tandem. Functional imaging of people with an ASD has suggested that there are disruptions in connectivity across the brain. Narrowing the search to determine if losses in connectivity affect only specific circuits has been difficult, however. Mapping which centers of the brain are tightly connected in most people but disrupted in illness potentially involves comparisons in activity between thousands of points in different brain regions. Accordingly, previous studies have focused on a predetermined, small handful of regions to evaluate connectivity differences in ASD. This Study Stephen Gotts, Alex Martin and colleagues at the National Institute of Mental Health developed an approach to identify regions throughout the entire brain for which connectivity was reduced in ASD, and measure the magnitude of the reductions. The scans were done on 31 adolescents with ASD and 29 without the disorder, while they were at rest, not engaged in any task. Scan results revealed decreases in connectivity among those with ASD compared to individuals without ASD, concentrated in areas of the brain involved in social functions. In particular, the greatest decreases occurred between a cluster of brain regions involved in the emotional aspects of social behavior (the limbic brain) and two other clusters: one involved in language and communication and the other in the interplay between visual perception and movement. Moreover, participants in the study who had the greatest difficulties with social interactions were those in whom the decreases in connectivity were the most marked. Significance These data offer evidence in terms of brain activity to confirm what scientists have suspected but have been unable to examine systematically, that disruptions in connectivity in autism are concentrated in social centers of the brain. According to Dr. Gotts, what they found was not that this circuit was inactive, but that, among participants with ASD, patterns of activity in the three clusters of brain centers did not correlate with each other. “So a circuit that is normally in sync with the rest of the social brain has become decoupled. The limbic brain is composed of areas and structures that mediate emotional and affective components of our social interactions, so you can understand the social rules about how other people are behaving and acting. These brain regions are active in autism spectrum disorders and are coordinated amongst themselves, but they are not interacting appropriately with the rest of the social brain.” The clusters of brain centers identified in the study as functionally connected are also anatomically connected circuits. One of the most exciting aspects of the research, says Gotts, is that in humans, this brain circuit shows a different developmental growth trajectory relative to the rest of the brain's cortex during typical development. Since genes are responsible for guiding growth during development, these findings provide a target for searching for genes that drive abnormal growth and limbic circuit functioning in ASD. The differences in connectivity also offer the possibility of a “systems-level” marker—an indicator reflecting function across the brain—to use in developing and testing possible treatment. Local abnormalities in cell signaling or, alternatively, loss of longer range neuronal connections could explain the differences reported. If the differences can be traced to more local dynamics, it may be possible to identify new medications or behavioral therapies; variations in circuit activity as shown by functional brain imaging could be used as markers of whether therapy was effective.

Brain regions showing decreases in connectivity in high functioning adolescents with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are shown to the left: Limbic-related regions involved in emotional/affective aspects of social behavior (shown in red), regions involved in social communication and comprehension (shown in blue), and regions involved in visual, somatosensory and motor aspects of social behavior (shown in green). In typically developing adolescents, these circuits are interactive and coordinated, exhibiting correlated patterns of brain activity over time (traces of neural activity would appear as illustrated in upper right plot). In adolescents with an ASD, the activity in the limbic circuit has become decoupled from the other social brain regions (see red activity trace in lower right plot). Activity within the limbic circuit itself remains coordinated but no longer interacts appropriately with the other two circuits nursing ceus Reference Gotts, S.J., Simmons, W.K., Milbury, L.A., Wallace, G.L., Cox, R.W., and Martin, A. Fractionation of Social Brain Circuits in Autism Spectrum Disorders. Brain 2012 doi:10.1093/brain/aws160.

Using biomarkers to identify and treat schizophrenia

Researchers say lab-based tests may be boon to both clinicians and researchers In the current online issue of PLoS ONE, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine say they have identified a set of laboratory-based biomarkers that can be useful for understanding brain-based abnormalities in schizophrenia. The measurements, known as endophenotypes, could ultimately be a boon to clinicians who sometimes struggle to recognize and treat the complex and confounding mental disorder. "A major problem in psychiatry is that there are currently no laboratory tests that aid in diagnosis, guide treatment decisions or help predict treatment response or outcomes," said Gregory A. Light, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and the study's first author. "Diagnoses are currently based on a clinician's ability to make inferences about patients' inner experiences." continuing education for counselors Diagnosing and treating schizophrenia is a particularly troubling challenge. The disorder, which affects about 1 percent of the U.S. population or roughly 3 million people, is characterized by a breakdown of normal thought processes and erratic, sometimes dangerous or harmful, behaviors. "Schizophrenia is among the most severe and disabling conditions across all categories of medicine," said Light, who also directs the Mental Illness, Research, Education and Clinical Center at the San Diego VA Healthcare System. The precise cause or causes of schizophrenia are not known, though there is a clear genetic component, with the disorder more common in some families. Clinicians typically diagnose schizophrenia based upon inferences drawn from the patient's inner experiences. That is, their ability to describe what's happening inside their minds. "But even the best clinicians struggle with diagnostic complexities based on sometimes fuzzy clinical phenomenology," said Light. The clinical challenge is compounded by the fact that "many schizophrenia patients have cognitive and functional impairments," said Light. They may not be able to reasonably explain how or what they think. Light and colleagues investigated whether a select battery of neurophysiological and neurocognitive biomarkers could provide clinicians with reliable, accurate, long-term indicators of brain dysfunction, even when overt symptoms of the disorder were not apparent. These markers ranged from tests of attention and memory to physiological assessments of basic perceptual processes using scalp sensors to measure brain responses to simple sounds. The researchers measured the biomarkers in 550 schizophrenia patients, and then re-tested 200 of the patients one year later. They found that most of the markers were significantly abnormal in schizophrenia patients, were relatively stable between the assessments and were not affected by modest fluctuations in clinical status of the patient. Light said further research is required, including whether the endophenotypes can differentiate other psychiatric disorders, be used to anticipate patient response to different kinds of drugs or non-pharmacological interventions or even be used to predict which subjects are at high risk of developing a psychotic illness. "We believe this paper is an important step towards validating laboratory-based biomarkers for use in future genomic and clinical treatment studies of schizophrenia," Light said. ### Co-authors are Neal R. Swerdlow, Anthony J. Rissling and Marlena Pela, Department of Psychiatry, UCSD; Allen Radant, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle; Catherine A. Sugar, Departments of Psychiatry and Biostatistics, UCLA; Joyce Sprock, Mark A. Geyer and David L. Braff, Mental Illness, Research, Education and Clinical Center, San Diego VA Healthcare System and Department of Psychiatry, UCSD. Funding for this research came, in part, from National Institute of Mental Health grants MH042228, MH079777 and MH065571 and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Research at UH finds cognitive-behavioral therapy effective in combatting anxiety disorders

Combination of treatments provides improvement for disorders such as fear of flying, public speaking or spiders Whether it is a phobia like a fear of flying, public speaking or spiders, or a diagnosis such as obsessive compulsive disorder, new research finds patients suffering from anxiety disorders showed the most improvement when treated with cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in conjunction with a "transdiagnostic" approach – a model that allows therapists to apply one set of principles across anxiety disorders Anxiety Disorders CE Course The combination was more effective than CBT combined with other types of anxiety disorder treatments, like relaxation training according to Peter Norton, associate professor in clinical psychology and director of the Anxiety Disorder Clinic at the University of Houston (UH) CADC I & II Continuing Education Norton concludes that therapists treating people with anxiety disorders may effectively use a treatment that applies one set of principals across all types of anxiety disorders. The findings are the result of a decade of research, four separate clinical trials and the completion of a five-year grant funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. Norton defines anxiety disorders as when anxiety and fear are so overwhelming that it can start to negatively impact a person's day-to-day life. He notes anxiety disorders include: panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), social anxiety disorder, specific phobias and generalized anxiety disorder. Often anxiety disorders occur with a secondary illness, such as depression, substance or alcohol abuse. Norton says there are targeted treatments for each diagnosis, but there has been little recognition that the treatments don't differ much, and they only differ in very specific ways. IMAGE:This is Peter Norton, associate professor in clinical psychology and director of the Anxiety Disorder Clinic at the University of Houston. Click here for more information. "The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has been an important breakthrough in understanding mental health, but people are dissatisfied with its fine level of differentiation," said Norton. "Panic disorders are considered something different from social phobia, which is considered something different from PTSD. The hope was that by getting refined in the diagnosis we could target interventions for each of these diagnoses, but in reality that just hasn't played out." As a graduate student in Nebraska, Norton couldn't get enough people together on the same night to run a group treatment for social phobia, and that marked the beginning 10 years of work on the transdiagnostic treatment approach. "What I realized is that I could open a group to people with anxiety disorders in general and develop a treatment program regardless of the artificial distinctions between social phobia and panic disorder, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, and focus on the core underlying things that are going wrong," said Norton. Norton finds cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), a type of treatment with a specific time frame and goals, helps patients understand the thoughts and feelings that influence behaviors to be the most effective treatment. The twist for him was using CBT in conjunction with the transdiagnostic approach. The patients receiving the transdiagnostic treatment showed considerable improvement, especially with treating comorbid diagnoses, a disease or IMAGE:This is the cover of "Group Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy of Anxiety. A Transdiagnostic Treatment Manual, " by Peter J. Norton. Click here for more information. condition that co-exists with a primary disease and can stand on its own as a specific disease, like depression. "What I have learned from my past research is that if you treat your principal diagnosis, such as social phobia and you hate public speaking, you are going to show improvement on some of your secondary diagnosis. Your mood is going to get a little better, your fear of heights might dissipate. So there is some effect there, but what we find is when we approach things with a transdiagnostic approach, we see a much bigger impact on comorbid diagnoses," said Norton. "In my research study, over two-thirds of comorbid diagnoses went away, versus what we typically we find when I'm treating a specific diagnosis such as a panic disorder, where only about 40 percent of people will show that sort of remission in their secondary diagnosis. The transdiagnostic treatment approach is more efficient in treating the whole person rather than just treating the diagnosis, then treating the next diagnoses." Norton notes the larger contributions of the studies are to guide further development and interventions for how clinical psychologists, therapists and social workers treat people with anxiety disorders. The data collected will be useful for people out on the front lines to effectively and efficiently treat people to reduce anxiety disorders. ### Norton is the author of the book, "Group Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy of Anxiety. A Transdiagnostic Treatment Manual," and co-author of "The Anti-Anxiety Workbook: Proven Strategies to Overcome Worry, Phobias, Panic and Obsessions." He has authored more than 90 research papers on such topics as anxiety disorders, CBT and chronic pain, and he serves on the editorial boards of two scientific journals. He has received early career awards and research grants for his work on studying and treating anxiety from the National Institute of Mental Health, the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, UH, the Anxiety Disorders Association of America and the American Psychological Association. About the Anxiety Disorder Clinic The Anxiety Disorder Clinic (ADC) is a specialty treatment and research clinic at the University of Houston. The goal of the ADC is to help clients overcome their problems with anxiety without medication by using the most effective psychological therapies available. Both research opportunities and low-cost clinical services based on the latest scientific evidence are offered to individuals. For more information about research opportunities and clinical services at ADC, please call 713-743-8600 or visit the ADC website www.uh.edu/anxiety About the University of Houston The University of Houston is a Carnegie-designated Tier One public research university recognized by The Princeton Review as one of the nation's best colleges for undergraduate education. UH serves the globally competitive Houston and Gulf Coast Region by providing world-class faculty, experiential learning and strategic industry partnerships. Located in the nation's fourth-largest city, UH serves more than 39,500 students in the most ethnically and culturally diverse region in the country.

Uncontrollable anger prevalent among US youth

Intermittent Explosive Disorder affects up to 6 million US adolescents Nearly two-thirds of U.S. adolescents have experienced an anger attack that involved threatening violence, destroying property or engaging in violence toward others at some point in their lives. These severe attacks of uncontrollable anger are much more common among adolescents than previously recognized, a new study led by researchers from Harvard Medical School finds. The study, based on the National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement, a national face-to-face household survey of 10,148 U.S. adolescents, found that nearly two-thirds of adolescents in the U.S. have a history of anger attacks. It also found that one in 12 young people—close to six million adolescents—meet criteria for a diagnosis of Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED), a syndrome characterized by persistent uncontrollable anger attacks not accounted for by other mental disorders. The results will be published July 2 in Archives of General Psychiatry. IED has an average onset in late childhood and tends to be quite persistent through the middle years of life. It is associated with the later onset of numerous other problems, including depression and substance abuse, according to senior author Ronald Kessler, McNeil Family Professor of Health Care Policy at HMS and leader of the team that carried out the study. Yet only 6.5 percent of adolescents with IED received professional treatment for their anger attacks. Study findings indicate that IED is a severe, chronic, commonly occurring disorder among adolescents, one that begins early in life. Yet the study also shows that IED is under-treated: although 37.8 percent of youths with IED obtained treatment for emotional problems in the 12 months prior to the study interview, only 6.5 percent received treatment specifically for anger. The researchers argue for the importance of identifying and treating IED early, perhaps through school-based violence prevention programs. "If we can detect IED early and intervene with effective treatment right away, we can prevent a substantial amount of future violence perpetration and associated psychopathology," Kessler said. To be diagnosed with IED, an individual must have had three episodes of impulsive aggressiveness "grossly out of proportion to any precipitating psychosocial stressor," at any time in their life, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The investigators used an even more stringent definition of IED, requiring that adolescents not meet criteria for other mental disorders associated with aggression, including bipolar disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder. As a result, researchers found that 1 in 12 adolescents met criteria for IED Anger Management CE Course ### Collaboraters included Katie McLaughlin, an HMS assistant professor of pediatrics and psychology at Boston Children's Hospital, Jennifer Greif Green at Boston University School of Education, Alan Zaslavsky, an HMS professor of health care policy, as well as statistical programmer and data analyst Irving Hwang and Nancy Sampson, a project director at HMS. This research was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (U01-MH60220 and R01-MH66627), the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the John W. Alden Trust. Harvard Medical School has more than 7,500 full-time faculty working in 11 academic departments located at the School's Boston campus or in one of 47 hospital-based clinical departments at 16 Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals and research institutes. Those affiliates include Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, Children's Hospital Boston, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Hebrew SeniorLife, Joslin Diabetes Center, Judge Baker Children's Center, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital, Mount Auburn Hospital, Schepens Eye Research Institute, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, and VA Boston Healthcare System.

Exposure to violence has long-term stress effects among adolescents

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Children who are exposed to community violence continue to exhibit a physical stress response up to a year after the exposure, suggesting that exposure to violence may have long-term negative health consequences, according researchers at Penn State and University College London. "We know that exposure to violence is linked with aggression, depression, post-traumatic stress symptoms and academic and cognitive difficulties in the short term, but little is known about the long-term effects of such exposure," said Elizabeth Susman, Jean Phillips Shibley Professor of Biobehavioral Health, Penn State. "Our data show that the stress reaction to violence exposure is not just immediate. There's an effect that endures." The scientists recruited 124 adolescents, ranging in age from 8 to 13 and living in small city and rural communities, to participate in the study social worker continuing education "Most studies of the effects of exposure to violence look at children who live in inner cities and urban communities," said Melissa Peckins, biobehavioral health graduate student, Penn State. "Our study is unique because we focused on children who live in small towns, so they are not children you would normally expect to be exposed to a lot of violence. Also, these were healthy children without a history of reported maltreatment." The researchers gave each of the adolescents a questionnaire, which identified their lifetime exposure to violence and exposure within the past 12 months. They then gave the adolescents the beginning of a story and asked them to complete it in front of two mock judges, whom they were told were evaluating their responses and performances for later comparison to those of other children the same age. Following the story-completion task, adolescents were also given a serial subtraction task. "The story completion task and mental arithmetic task are commonly used to elicit a stress response in laboratory settings," Peckins said. "Our hypothesis was that children who have been exposed to more violent events in the past year will have an attenuated response to the laboratory stressor -- even 12 months after the incidence -- compared with children who experienced fewer violent events." The team measured the children's stress responses by comparing the cortisol levels present in samples of their saliva collected before and after the stress test was administered. "In males, we found that as exposure to violence increased, cortisol reactivity decreased, so cortisol reactivity was attenuated; it was a habituation effect," Peckins said. The finding was not present in females. The results were published online in a recent issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health. "In enduring stressful conditions, we may have adapted evolutionarily to suppress our cortisol levels because higher and more prolonged levels of cortisol in the bloodstream can lead to negative health consequences, such as autoimmune disorders, lowered immunity, arthritis and atypical depression. This may explain why cortisol reactivity was lower for males," Susman said. "However, there is a theory that females may react to stressful situations by talking about it, which may be their way of reducing the negative effects of cortisol in the bloodstream. If parents and other adults are available to discuss episodes of violence with children, it might help the children, especially females, to reduce their cortisol levels." In the future, the team hopes to examine the role of duration of exposure to violence and time elapsed after exposure to violence on cortisol reactivity. ### Other researchers on this project were Samantha Dockray, research fellow, University College London, and Jacey Eckenrode, graduate student in biobehavioral health and Jodi Heaton, administrative assistant, biobehavioral health, both at Penn State. The National Institute of Mental Health, the General Clinical Research Center of the National Institutes of Health and Penn State supported this work.