Faculty Bibliography

OBJECTIVES/OBJECTIVE:Adolescents transitioning from child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) to adult mental health services (AMHS) may face challenges in accurately identifying and reporting their mental health symptoms, often leading to discrepancies between clinician and patient evaluations. Using data from the MILESTONE project, this study aims to assess clinician-adolescent concordance over 24 months and identify domains of psychopathology with the highest disparities. METHODS:Participants were assessed at baseline, 9, 15, and 24 months using the Health of the Nation Outcome Scales for Children and Adolescents (HoNOSCA) scale and were categorized in four diagnostic groups. Hierarchical cluster analysis identified symptom-based subgroups of patients based on clinician and patient-rated HoNOSCA scores. Concordance was evaluated through multilevel linear regression models, while Bland-Altman plots examined agreement between scores across time points. RESULTS:Two clusters of patients were identified: one characterized by lower severity and greater prevalence, the other by higher complexity and fewer individuals. Clinician-patient concordance increased over time, rising from 77% to 83% by the second time point and stabilizing. Concordance varied across diagnostic categories, with anxiety showing the highest agreement and ADHD the lowest. CONCLUSIONS:Improved communication, psychoeducation, and tailored interventions may facilitate greater patient-clinician alignment, thereby supporting more favorable outcomes during this critical developmental period. TRIAL REGISTRATION/BACKGROUND:ISRCTN83240263; NCT03013595.

INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND:The long-standing cholinergic hypothesis posits that cholinergic signaling is uniformly deficient in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Down syndrome (DS). We tested the hypothesis that this deficiency occurs primarily late in disease, while early stages involve excessive cholinergic signaling, with distinct implications for memory. METHODS:Tg2576 (AD model; n = 38), Ts65Dn (DS model; n = 14), and wild-type (WT; n = 17) mice at young (3 to 4 months) and old (>14 months) ages received treatments to reduce cholinergic signaling (medial septum chemogenetic inhibition, muscarinic antagonist scopolamine) or enhance it (acetylcholinesterase inhibitor donepezil). Memory assessments used novel object recognition. RESULTS:Anticholinergic manipulations restored memory in young Tg2576 and Ts65Dn mice but impaired age-matched WT mice. Conversely, donepezil improved the memory of old Tg2576, Ts65Dn, and WT but not young Tg2576 and Ts65Dn animals. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSIONS:These findings refine and challenge the cholinergic hypothesis, revealing for the first time a functional shift from cholinergic hyperactivity driving early cognitive impairment to late-stage degeneration requiring enhancement.

BACKGROUND:The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated challenges faced by pregnant women, introducing new risks and intensifying existing disparities, particularly among those routinely experiencing race- and ethnicity-based discrimination. It remains unclear how the pandemic affected perceptions of perinatal quality of care (QoC). OBJECTIVES/OBJECTIVE:To explore mothers' experiences of pregnancy, birth, and the early postpartum period during the early COVID-19 pandemic, attending to both health care encounters and to the broader structural and social forces shaping those experiences. DESIGN/METHODS:The COVID-19 Mother Baby Outcomes (COMBO) Initiative is a longitudinal, prospective cohort study investigating maternal-child outcomes among women from a predominantly low socioeconomic status, Latinx community in New York City who delivered during the pandemic. This qualitative substudy analyzed a subset of participants using modified grounded theory. METHODS:Semi-structured interviews explored perinatal and pandemic experiences, perceptions of inequitable or poor treatment, and protective factors among 64 participants purposively sampled from the parent cohort. Analysis focused on 48 transcripts highlighting discrimination-related themes, which were transcribed and systematically coded using both inductive and deductive approaches. RESULTS:phenomenon. CONCLUSION/CONCLUSIONS:Giving birth during the pandemic worsened perceptions of perinatal QoC, with discrimination compounding negative experiences. Findings underscore the link between care quality and trust in medical institutions, highlighting the need for evidence-based crisis protocols that both reduce unnecessary risk while preserving patient agency, particularly for marginalized populations. The pandemic exposed longstanding structural inequities, presenting an opportunity to address these patient-level manifestations and strengthen support for populations facing systemic barriers.

Although temperamental negative affectivity has been identified as a developmental mechanism mediating the link between perinatal risk and internalizing problems in early childhood, its role in predicting broader behavioral and emotional problems across childhood remains understudied. We examined the longitudinal relations among perinatal complications (i.e., prenatal maternal depression and cardiometabolic complications, preterm birth, and low birth weight), children's negative affectivity (M

BACKGROUND:The obesity epidemic in the United States affects not only adults, but children and adolescents. SOURCES OF MATERIAL/UNASSIGNED:An extensive review of the literature including 85 articles has been completed with the aim of providing the most current definitions and recommendations for this chronic condition. ABSTACT OF FINDINGS/UNASSIGNED:This article reviews the definition of pediatric obesity, the increasing prevalence of obesity in children and adolescents, genetic and environmental risk factors, as well as the unique aspects and implications of this condition and its associated comorbidities for this population in comparison to adults. Current management recommendations are also discussed which include Intensive Health Behavioral and Lifestyle Treatment (IHBLT), metabolic surgery, and pharmacologic therapy including glucago-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs). CONCLUSION/CONCLUSIONS:Childhood obesity is a unique condition in its progression and management requirements, and should be approached with a focus on prevention as well as on the high-risk individual.

Insurance type is a key indicator of structural vulnerability in pediatric mental health care and may be associated with differences in psychiatric presentation, treatment course, and diagnosis among hospitalized youth, particularly Black and Hispanic/Latino children insured by Medicaid. Despite these inequities, their impact remains understudied among psychiatrically hospitalized pediatric populations. This retrospective study analyzed 1,101 child and adolescent psychiatric patients admitted to an urban psychiatric hospital between June 2018 and November 2021. Clinical presentation, psychiatric history, treatment course, and discharge diagnoses were compared between patients' insurance by Medicaid (72%) and those with commercial insurance (28%). Compared with commercially insured patients, children and adolescents with Medicaid were more likely to be Black or Hispanic/Latino and had higher rates of trauma exposure, prior psychiatric emergency visits, and higher rates of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), impulsive/behavioral disorders, and developmental/intellectual disorders. They were more frequently admitted for aggression-related crises, more likely to receive emergency injectable medications for agitation, and had longer hospital stays. Commercially insured patients had higher rates of anxiety disorders and suicide attempt related admissions. These findings suggest children and adolescents with Medicaid who required psychiatric hospitalization had greater severity of psychosocial histories and higher-acuity inpatient courses, highlighting how structural inequities reflected by insurance type, may shape differing psychiatric treatment pathways, underscoring the need for equity-oriented interventions, particularly during periods of healthcare system strains.

BackgroundRates of psychiatric disorders and related hospitalizations among youth in the United States have risen substantially over recent decades. Despite evidence supporting outpatient care, fewer than half of youth receive treatment. When outpatient management is insufficient, inpatient psychiatric hospitalization is required, though it is costly, disruptive, and limited in availability. Prior research on predictors of inpatient length of stay has been dated and heterogenous, highlighting the need to identify current clinical and non-clinical factors associated with prolonged stays among youth populations.MethodThis IRB-approved retrospective study reviewed the medical records of 1,101 child and adolescent patients admitted to an inpatient psychiatric unit between June 1, 2018, and November 30, 2021. Baseline sociodemographic and clinical data were collected, and LOS was categorized into three groups: below-average (0-6 days), average (7-14 days), and above-average (15+ days). Comparative statistics were performed, and linear regression was used to identify independent predictors of LOS.ResultsThe average LOS was 10.5 days. Significant predictors of prolonged LOS included public insurance, admission for psychosis or suicide attempt, involvement of child protective services, number of prior hospitalizations, and number of medications prior to admission.ConclusionProlonged LOS in psychiatrically hospitalized youth is associated with specific clinical and non-clinical factors. Identifying these predictors at admission can guide treatment planning and set realistic expectations for families. Further research is required to validate these findings and explore the impact of LOS on treatment outcomes.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition, with ex vivo studies suggesting its neurobiological origin as early as the first and second trimester of pregnancy. Functional MRI studies using graph-theoretical approaches have isolated features in the global connectome architecture that distinguish toddlers with ASD from their typically developing peers. Additionally, functional connectivity patterns in the infant brain have shown to be predictive of later ASD diagnosis. An important yet unexplored question in the literature is whether graph-theoretical differences are evident prior to infancy, in the brain of fetuses who will later exhibit ASD traits in early childhood. In this study, we address this question using a sample of 88 children with both quality-assured fetal brain resting-state functional MRI data and standardized parent assessment of ASD traits including social-emotional and social communication skills and repetitive and restricted behaviors at age 3. Multiple regression analyses revealed no significant associations between fetal global graph features (e.g., network segregation, integration, and small-world architecture) and ASD traits at age 3 (p's > 0.1). Therefore, our findings do not provide support for prenatal emergence of global topographical differences of brain functional organization in fetuses who later develop ASD traits. However, this does not rule out the possibility of other neural signatures in the fetal functional connectome that may predict autistic traits and future ASD diagnosis.