Faculty Bibliography

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) is revamping the access, quality, and financing of the health and mental health systems. However, its impact on training and education in clinical psychology is unclear. This article aims to identify specific components of the ACA, in particular the Mental and Behavioral Health Education and Training Grants, that are expected to affect training and education in the field. The article further connects the ACA with four paradigm shifts in clinical psychology that have broad implications for training and educationevidence-based practices, research methodology, interprofessionalism, and the quality indicator movement. The overarching goal of this article is to begin timely discussions on the future directions of the field under the current healthcare reform.

Given the disproportionately high rates of obesity-related morbidity among low-income, ethnic minority youth, obesity prevention in this population is critical. Prior efforts to curb childhood obesity have had limited public health impact. The present study evaluates an innovative approach to obesity prevention by promoting foundational parenting and child behavioral regulation. This pre-post intervention study evaluated an enhanced version of ParentCorps with 91 families of pre-Kindergarten students in low-income, urban communities. Assessments included tests of knowledge and parent report. Consistent with findings from two randomized controlled trials of ParentCorps, parent knowledge and use of foundational parenting practices increased and child behavior problems decreased. Child nutrition knowledge and physical activity increased and television watching decreased; for boys, sleep problems decreased. Comparable benefits occurred for children at high risk for obesity based on child dysregulation, child overweight, and parent overweight. Results support a "whole child," family-centered approach to health promotion in early childhood.

In this qualitative study the authors examine factors associated with the successful implementation and plans for continued use of an evidence-informed intervention, the 4Rs and 2Ss Program for Strengthening Families, in a sample of 29 New York State, Office of Mental Health licensed child mental health clinics. A learning collaborative (LC) approach was used as a vehicle for supporting training and implementation of the program. The PRISM theoretical framework ( Feldstein & Glasgow, 2008 ) was used to guide the data analysis. Data were analyzed using a multi-phase iterative process, identifying influences on implementation at multiple levels: the program (intervention), the external environment, implementation and sustainability infrastructure, and recipient characteristics. Clinics that were more proactive evidenced staff with advanced organizational skills were able to take advantage of the trainings and supports offered by the LC and fared better in their ability to adopt the intervention. The ability to adapt the intervention to the specific constraints of the clinics was a strong influence on continued use following the end of the LC. These preliminary results suggest that the supports provided by the LC are useful in consolidating information about the process of implementing evidence-informed interventions in community mental health settings. The impact of these supports is also based on their interactions with specific clinic contextual factors.

In many systems, sleep plays a vital role in memory consolidation and synaptic homeostasis. These processes together help store information of biological significance and reset synaptic circuits to facilitate acquisition of information in the future. In this review, we describe recent evidence of sleep-dependent changes in olfactory system structure and function which contribute to odor memory and perception. During slow-wave sleep, the piriform cortex becomes hypo-responsive to odor stimulation and instead displays sharp-wave activity similar to that observed within the hippocampal formation. Furthermore, the functional connectivity between the piriform cortex and other cortical and limbic regions is enhanced during slow-wave sleep compared to waking. This combination of conditions may allow odor memory consolidation to occur during a state of reduced external interference and facilitate association of odor memories with stored hedonic and contextual cues. Evidence consistent with sleep-dependent odor replay within olfactory cortical circuits is presented. These data suggest that both the strength and precision of odor memories is sleep-dependent. The work further emphasizes the critical role of synaptic plasticity and memory in not only odor memory but also basic odor perception. The work also suggests a possible link between sleep disturbances that are frequently co-morbid with a wide range of pathologies including Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia and depression and the known olfactory impairments associated with those disorders.

Abstract Attention and executive function deficits are a common sequelae of many neurological conditions of childhood. Those with epilepsy frequently show such deficits, as executive dysfunction is common in all epilepsy syndromes of childhood. The purpose of this article is to review what is known about attention and executive functions, including the neurological underpinnings of these skills. Then, general cognitive function and dysfunction in childhood epilepsy is discussed with a special focus on attention and executive function impairment. Finally, treatment considerations for children and adolescents with these deficits are reviewed and future directions are discussed.

Sharing drafts of scientific manuscripts on preprint hosting services for early exposure and pre-publication feedback is a well-accepted practice in fields such as physics, astronomy, or mathematics. The field of neuroscience, however, has yet to adopt the preprint model. A reason for this reluctance might partly be the lack of central preprint services for the field of neuroscience. To address this issue, we announce the launch of Preprints of the R-fMRI Network (PRN), a community funded preprint hosting service. PRN provides free-submission and free hosting of manuscripts for resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (R-fMRI) and neuroscience related studies. Submissions will be peer viewed and receive feedback from readers and a panel of invited consultants of the R-fMRI Network. All manuscripts and feedback will be freely available online with citable permanent URL for open-access. The goal of PRN is to supplement the "peer reviewed" journal publication system - by more rapidly communicating the latest research achievements throughout the world. We hope PRN will help the field to embrace the preprint model and thus further accelerate R-fMRI and neuroscience related studies, eventually enhancing human mental health.

This report evaluates whether classification tree algorithms (CTA) may improve the identification of individuals at risk for bipolar spectrum disorders (BPSD). Analyses used the Longitudinal Assessment of Manic Symptoms (LAMS) cohort (629 youth, 148 with BPSD and 481 without BPSD). Parent ratings of mania symptoms, stressful life events, parenting stress, and parental history of mania were included as risk factors. Comparable overall accuracy was observed for CTA (75.4%) relative to logistic regression (77.6%). However, CTA showed increased sensitivity (0.28 vs. 0.18) at the expense of slightly decreased specificity and positive predictive power. The advantage of CTA algorithms for clinical decision making is demonstrated by the combinations of predictors most useful for altering the probability of BPSD. The 24% sample probability of BPSD was substantially decreased in youth with low screening and baseline parent ratings of mania, negative parental history of mania, and low levels of stressful life events (2%). High screening plus high baseline parent-rated mania nearly doubled the BPSD probability (46%). Future work will benefit from examining additional, powerful predictors, such as alternative data sources (e.g., clinician ratings, neurocognitive test data); these may increase the clinical utility of CTA models further.

The International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) defined a seizure as "a transient occurrence of signs and/or symptoms due to abnormal excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain." This definition has been used since the era of Hughlings Jackson, and does not take into account subsequent advances made in epilepsy and neuroscience research. The clinical diagnosis of a seizure is empirical, based upon constellations of certain signs and symptoms, while simultaneously ruling out a list of potential imitators of seizures. Seizures should be delimited in time, but the borders of ictal (during a seizure), interictal (between seizures) and postictal (after a seizure) often are indistinct. EEG recording is potentially very helpful for confirmation, classification and localization. About a half-dozen common EEG patterns are encountered during seizures. Clinicians rely on researchers to answer such questions as why seizures start, spread and stop, whether seizures involve increased synchrony, the extent to which extra-cortical structures are involved, and how to identify the seizure network and at what points interventions are likely to be helpful. Basic scientists have different challenges in use of the word 'seizure,' such as distinguishing seizures from normal behavior, which would seem easy but can be very difficult because some rodents have EEG activity during normal behavior that resembles spike-wave discharge or bursts of rhythmic spiking. It is also important to define when a seizure begins and stops so that seizures can be quantified accurately for pre-clinical studies. When asking what causes seizures, the transition to a seizure and differentiating the pre-ictal, ictal and post-ictal state is also important because what occurs before a seizure could be causal and may warrant further investigation for that reason. These and other issues are discussed by three epilepsy researchers with clinical and basic science expertise.