Sensation Seeking in Children and Adults with Pediatric-Onset Bipolar Disorder.

Bipolar disorder (BD) is one of the most impairing psychiatric illnesses. Those with pediatric-onset BD tend to have worse outcomes; therefore, accurate conceptualization is important for aspects of care, such as tailored treatment interventions. Sensation seeking behaviors may be a window into the psychopathology of pediatric-onset BD. Participants with BD and healthy controls (HC) ages 7-27 completed self-report assessments, including the Sensation Seeking Scale- V (SSS-V). Among the BD group, there was a significant positive correlation between the Disinhibition subscale and age. Analyses indicated that the BD group scored lower on the Thrill and Adventure Seeking subscale but higher on the Disinhibition scale when compared to the HC group. We found that individuals with pediatric-onset BD are more likely to engage in socially risky behaviors. These results are an important step in understanding sensation seeking characteristics in BD youth and improving treatment, ultimately helping individuals live a more stable life.

10 Lessons Learned in Launching a Division-Wide Measurement-Based Care Initiative.

Mental health problems are a major source of morbidity and mortality for children and adolescents, affecting 15% to 20% of those under 18 years of age in the US.1 Half of all mental health conditions start by age 14 years, although most cases remain undetected and untreated.2 Despite knowing much about mental health conditions affecting children, many speculate that the lack of standardized approaches to patient care contribute to poor outcomes, including substantial diagnostic variation, few remissions, risk for relapse or recidivism, and, ultimately, greater mortality due to an inability to accurately predict who will make a suicide attempt.3-5 Studies support this over-reliance on the "art of medicine" (ie, subjective judgment without use of standardized measures), finding that only 17.9% of psychiatrists and 11.1% of psychologists in the US routinely administer symptom rating scales to their patients, despite studies suggesting that when using clinical judgment alone, mental health providers detect deterioration for only 21.4% of patients.4.

The Effects of Functionally Guided, Connectivity-Based rTMS on Amygdala Activation.

While repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is widely used to treat psychiatric disorders, innovations are needed to improve its efficacy. An important limitation is that while psychiatric disorders are associated with fronto-limbic dysregulation, rTMS does not have sufficient depth penetration to modulate affected subcortical structures. Recent advances in task-related functional connectivity provide a means to better link superficial and deeper cortical sources with the possibility of increasing fronto-limbic modulation to induce stronger therapeutic effects. The objective of this pilot study was to test whether task-related, connectivity-based rTMS could modulate amygdala activation through its connectivity with the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). fMRI was collected to identify a node in the mPFC showing the strongest connectivity with the amygdala, as defined by psychophysiological interaction analysis. To promote Hebbian-like plasticity, and potentially stronger modulation, 5 Hz rTMS was applied while participants viewed frightening video-clips that engaged the fronto-limbic network. Significant increases in both the mPFC and amygdala were found for active rTMS compared to sham, offering promising preliminary evidence that functional connectivity-based targeting may provide a useful approach to treat network dysregulation. Further research is needed to better understand connectivity influences on rTMS effects to leverage this information to improve therapeutic applications.