Faculty Bibliography

BACKGROUND: Autism is a heterogeneous neurodevelopmental disorder of unknown etiology. The amygdala has long been a site of intense interest in the search for neuropathology in autism, given its role in emotional and social behavior. An interesting hypothesis has emerged that the amygdala undergoes an abnormal developmental trajectory with a period of early overgrowth in autism; however this finding has not been well established at young ages nor analyzed with boys and girls independently. METHODS: We measured amygdala volumes on magnetic resonance imaging scans from 89 toddlers at 1-5 years of age (mean = 3 years). Each child returned at approximately 5 years of age for final clinical evaluation. RESULTS: Toddlers who later received a confirmed autism diagnosis (32 boys, 9 girls) had a larger right (p < .01) and left (p < .05) amygdala compared with typically developing toddlers (28 boys, 11 girls) with and without covarying for total cerebral volume. Amygdala size in toddlers with autism spectrum disorder correlated with the severity of their social and communication impairments as measured on the Autism Diagnostic Interview and Vineland scale. Strikingly, girls differed more robustly from typical in amygdala volume, whereas boys accounted for the significant relationship of amygdala size with severity of clinical impairment. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides evidence that the amygdala is enlarged in young children with autism; the overgrowth must begin before 3 years of age and is associated with the severity of clinical impairments. However, neuroanatomic phenotypic profiles differ between males and females, which critically affects future studies on the genetics and etiology of autism

BACKGROUND: In February, 2007, the Associated Press (AP) conducted a poll of 1,002 adults in the United States about their attitudes towards the war in Iraq. Respondents were remarkably accurate estimating the current death toll of US soldiers, yet were grossly inaccurate in estimating the current death toll of Iraqi civilians. We conducted a search of newspapers reports to determine the extent of the discrepancy between reporting Coalition and Iraqi civilian deaths, hypothesizing that there would be an over-representation of Coalition deaths compared to Iraqi civilian deaths. METHODS: We examined 11 U.S. newspapers and 5 non-U.S. newspapers using electronic databases or newspaper web-archives, to record any reports between March 2003 and March 2008 of Coalition and Iraqi deaths that included a numeric indicator. Reports were described as "events" where they described a specific occurrence involving fatalities and "tallies" when they mentioned the number of deaths over a period of time. We recorded the number of events and tallies related to Coalition deaths, Iraqi civilian deaths, and Iraqi combatant deaths RESULTS: U.S. newspapers report more events and tallies related to Coalition deaths than Iraqi civilian deaths, although there are substantially different proportions amongst the different U.S. newspapers. In four of the five non-US newspapers, the pattern was reversed. CONCLUSION: This difference in reporting trends may partly explain the discrepancy in how well people are informed about U.S. and Iraqi civilian fatalities in Iraq. Furthermore, this calls into question the role of the media in reporting and sustaining armed conflict, and the extent to which newspaper and other media reports can be used as data to assess fatalities or trends in the time of war.

Childhood sexual abuse has been associated with a number of serious physical and psychological consequences throughout childhood and into adulthood for both child victims and their families. This paper describes the preliminary outcomes of a pilot group program to treat non-offending parents of sexually abused children. This group program is integrative in its approach combining elements of trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral and psychoeducational/supportive interventions to treat non-offending parents of sexually abused children. This study also focuses on outcomes in terms of parental post-traumatic distress and general family functioning.A small group of non-offending parents was recruited from a local child advocacy agency. Parents attended the twelve-week group program and outcomes such as parent post-traumatic stress and family dysfunction were examined. Measures of overall satisfaction and intervention feasibility were also examined at the end of the group intervention.Favorable outcomes included a decrease in parent self-report of post-traumatic stress and select aspects of family dysfunction. Seventy five percent of parents completed the group program. Satisfaction questionnaire responses demonstrated highly favorable perceptions of the group's content, leaders, and helpfulness.This study served as an initial step in the development of larger family-focused interventions involving parallel parent and child groups and focused family sessions. Outcomes may begin to shed some light on the need for more parent- and family-focused interventions in families that have been affected by sexual abuse.

BACKGROUND: Individual differences in specific components of attention contribute to behavioral reactivity and regulation. Children with the temperament of behavioral inhibition (BI) provide a good context for considering the manner in which certain components of attention shape behavior. Infants and children characterized as behaviorally inhibited manifest signs of heightened orienting to novelty. The current study considers whether this attention profile moderates risk for clinical anxiety disorders among adolescents with a history of BI. METHODS: Participants were assessed at multiple time points for BI, beginning in early childhood. At adolescence, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during a three-stimulus auditory novelty oddball task, which employed frequent standard and infrequent deviant tones as well as a set of complex, novel sounds. Clinical diagnosis was carried out using the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children-Present and Lifetime Version (K-SADS-PL). P3 and mismatch negativity (MMN) components were examined at midline frontal, central, and parietal electrode sites. RESULTS: Individuals who displayed high levels of BI during childhood and increased P3 amplitude to novelty in adolescence were more likely to have a history of anxiety disorders compared to behaviorally inhibited adolescents with lower P3 amplitudes. Groups did not differ on measures of MMN. CONCLUSIONS: Increased neural responses to novelty moderate risk for anxiety disorders amongst individuals with a history of BI.

Unintended consequences of participating in research studies are not well characterized, particularly in veterans who are frequent study participants. Our objective, then, was to assess the rate of and variables associated with distress resulting from veterans' participation in a study on a sensitive subject. Veterans Administration (VA) hospital outpatients were administered questionnaires with three increasingly severe scenarios of a U.S. soldier abusing a detainee. Distress--upset requiring clinical intervention--was assessed, as were sociodemographic characteristics, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and locus of control (LOC). Three hundred fifty-one veterans participated. Forty-three (12%) became distressed. Modeling indicated distress was associated with minority status (odds ratio [OR] = 5.72, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.59, 20.58), PTSD (OR = 2.66, 95% CI = 1.12, 6.29), and external LOC (OR = 6.27, 95% CI = 2.82, 13.90). Distress related to study participation was high in this veteran sample. Higher rates in some subgroups suggested that some individuals may not be able to accurately anticipate risk for harm in sensitive studies.