Faculty Bibliography

This article provides an overview of the books featured in the Book Forum section of the present issue of Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. The books seek to understand what one can gain from appreciating the reality of children's immersion in media. The power of the media is enormous for all. Its power comes not from how fantastical or extraordinary or strange it can be, but from how real it is. It is always tempting to think of the media as a vast, undulating metaphor for humanity, but it is not representing humanity: it is humanity.

This editorial discuses the this month's Book Forum, in which we go back to the basics, to topics that are the roots of our field: case formulation, anxiety in children, and autism. The richness, the debates, and the complexities of the books and reviews speak to the exciting challenges we face in our day-to-day work and reflect the confounding magnificence of the rugrats, Minecraft addicts, and pierced teens we meet every day.

This article provides an overview of the two books presented in the issue Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. The first book, Being a Teen: Everything Teen Girls and Boys Should Know About Relationships, Sex, Love, Health, Identity, and More By Jane Fonda is the culmination of the author's experience with teens and what the author believes teens need to know. The second book, Healing After Parent Loss in Childhood and Adolescence: Therapeutic Interventions and Theoretical Considerations edited by Phyllis Cohen, K. Mark Sossin, and Richard Ruth is a new volume dedicated to clinical work with children and adolescents who have lost a parent to death. Sickles reviews a book of advice for teens, and Weis reviews a new text describing therapeutic interventions for children after the loss of a parent.

Olfactory information is synthesized within the olfactory cortex to provide not only an odor percept, but also a contextual significance that supports appropriate behavioral response to specific odor cues. The piriform cortex serves as a communication hub within this circuit by sharing reciprocal connectivity with higher processing regions, such as the lateral entorhinal cortex and amygdala. The functional significance of these descending inputs on piriform cortical processing of odorants is currently not well understood. We have employed optogenetic methods to selectively stimulate lateral and basolateral amygdala (BLA) afferent fibers innervating the posterior piriform cortex (pPCX) to quantify BLA modulation of pPCX odor-evoked activity. Single unit odor-evoked activity of anesthetized BLA-infected animals was significantly modulated compared with control animal recordings, with individual cells displaying either enhancement or suppression of odor-driven spiking. In addition, BLA activation induced a decorrelation of odor-evoked pPCX ensemble activity relative to odor alone. Together these results indicate a modulatory role in pPCX odor processing for the BLA complex. This interaction could contribute to learned changes in PCX activity following associative conditioning, as well as support alternate patterns of odor processing that are state-dependent.

Many adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are undiagnosed, and Hispanic adults with ADHD in particular face numerous barriers to accessing mental health care. Some of these barriers are cultural, such as stigma related to mental illness and misconceptions about psychotropic treatment. Other barriers are instrumental, such as language barriers, lack of insurance, or illegal immigration status. Clinicians can take many steps to help Hispanic patients overcome these barriers and should strive to be culturally sensitive in managing the unique challenges and needs of Hispanic patients with ADHD.

This article examines key setting events and personal factors that are associated with support for either non-violent activism or violent activism among Somali refugee young adults in the United States. Specifically, this article examines the associations of trauma, stress, symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), posttraumatic growth (PTG), strength of social bonds, and attitudes towards legal and non-violent vs. illegal and violent activism. Structured interviews were conducted with a sample of Somali refugee males ages 18-25 living in the northeastern United States (N=79). Data were analyzed using multiple linear regressions and path analysis. Greater exposure to personal trauma was associated with greater openness to illegal and violent activism. PTSD symptoms mediated this association. Strong social bonds to both community and society moderated this association, with trauma being more strongly associated with openness to illegal and violent activism among those who reported weaker social bonds. Greater exposure to trauma, PTG, and stronger social bonds were all associated with greater openness to legal non-violent activism.