Screening for children's depression symptoms in Greece: the use of the Children's Depression Inventory in a nation-wide school-based sample

The objective of this study is to determine the level of depressive symptoms among a sample of Greek children aged 8–12 years, as measured by the Greek Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI), as well as to examine CDI's psychometric properties. A nationwide school-based sample of 650 children was initially recruited and depressive symptoms were assessed with the CDI among 538 children who provided all relevant information. Statistical evaluation included assessment of CDI internal reliability, test–retest reliability, determination of age, gender and socioeconomic status (SES) effects. Based on the distributions of CDI scores observed in this normative sample, a recommended cutoff score, identifying a high probability of serious levels of depressive symptoms that need to be further evaluated, was defined. Internal reliability and test–retest reliability were satisfactory and the expected associations with age and gender were observed. High SES was correlated with significantly less depression symptoms. The prevalence of depressive risk, when the cutoff point of 19 or 13 was taken as threshold, was much lower than those obtained from studies in other countries. The cutoff point of 15, corresponding to 90th percentile of the present sample, may be used as a screening threshold for further assessment. The present results are encouraging providing evidence about the psychometric properties of the CDI and implications for child mental health promotion planning in Greece. Further validation of the CDI against other measures and psychiatric diagnoses is needed

Mental health problems in children of somatically ill parents, e.g. multiple sclerosis

Objectives: Based on the investigation of 144 families (144 patients affected by Multiple Sclerosis (MS), 109 partners, and 192 children) examined in three different European child and adolescent psychiatric University centres by means of questionnaires, we evaluated the prevalence of psychological symptoms in the offspring and associated risk factors such as duration and severity of the disease as well as depression of the ill and the healthy parent. Results: Indicate that the severe disease of MS is associated with depression of the ill and healthy parent. Ill parents, especially ill mothers, as well as depressed ill, or depressed healthy parents evaluate their children's mental health problems with a higher prevalence within the internalizing spectrum. Healthy parents report normal psychological adjustment of their children. If two parents present a depressive state, the prevalence of relevant psychological internalizing symptoms is twice or three times as high as the age norms. Conclusion: Children in families with a parent affected by MS and associated depression of the parental couple are at high risk of mental health problems, especially internalizing disorders. In focusing on the mental health of children one must also be aware of the potential opportunities to address the parents' own psychological need

Individual common variants exert weak effects on the risk for autism spectrum disorders.

While it is apparent that rare variation can play an important role in the genetic architecture of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), the contribution of common variation to the risk of developing ASD is less clear. To produce a more comprehensive picture, we report Stage 2 of the Autism Genome Project genome-wide association study, adding 1301 ASD families and bringing the total to 2705 families analysed (Stages 1 and 2). In addition to evaluating the association of individual single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), we also sought evidence that common variants, en masse, might affect the risk. Despite genotyping over a million SNPs covering the genome, no single SNP shows significant association with ASD or selected phenotypes at a genome-wide level. The SNP that achieves the smallest P-value from secondary analyses is rs1718101. It falls in CNTNAP2, a gene previously implicated in susceptibility for ASD. This SNP also shows modest association with age of word/phrase acquisition in ASD subjects, of interest because features of language development are also associated with other variation in CNTNAP2. In contrast, allele scores derived from the transmission of common alleles to Stage 1 cases significantly predict case status in the independent Stage 2 sample. Despite being significant, the variance explained by these allele scores was small (Vm< 1%). Based on results from individual SNPs and their en masse effect on risk, as inferred from the allele score results, it is reasonable to conclude that common variants affect the risk for ASD but their individual effects are modest

Unique Changes in Mitochondrial Genomes Associated with Reversions of S-Type Cytoplasmic Male Sterility in Maizemar

Cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) in plants is usually associated with the expression of specific chimeric regions within rearranged mitochondrial genomes. Maize CMS-S plants express high amounts of a 1.6-kb mitochondrial RNA during microspore maturation, which is associated with the observed pollen abortion. This transcript carries two chimeric open reading frames, orf355 and orf77, both unique to CMS-S. CMS-S mitochondria also contain free linear DNA plasmids bearing terminal inverted repeats (TIRs). These TIRs recombine with TIR-homologous sequences that precede orf355/orf77 within the main mitochondrial genome to produce linear ends. Transcription of the 1.6-kb RNA is initiated from a promoter within the TIRs only when they are at linear ends. Reversions of CMS-S to fertility occur in certain nuclear backgrounds and are usually associated with loss of the S plasmids and/or the sterility-associated region. We describe an unusual set of independently recovered revertants from a single maternal lineage that retain both the S plasmids and an intact orf355/orf77 region but which do not produce the 1.6-kb RNA. A 7.3-kb inversion resulting from illegitmate recombination between 14-bp microrepeats has separated the genomic TIR sequences from the CMS-associated region. Although RNAs containing orf355/orf77 can still be detected in the revertants, they are not highly expressed during pollen development and they are no longer initiated from the TIR promoter at a protein-stabilized linear end. They appear instead to be co-transcribed with cytochrome oxidase subunit 2. The 7.3-kb inversion was not detected in CMS-S or in other fertile revertants. Therefore, this inversion appears to be a de novo mutation that has continued to sort out within a single maternal lineage, giving rise to fertile progeny in successive generations

A novel approach of homozygous haplotype sharing identifies candidate genes in autism spectrum disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a highly heritable disorder of complex and heterogeneous aetiology. It is primarily characterized by altered cognitive ability including impaired language and communication skills and fundamental deficits in social reciprocity. Despite some notable successes in neuropsychiatric genetics, overall, the high heritability of ASD (~90%) remains poorly explained by common genetic risk variants. However, recent studies suggest that rare genomic variation, in particular copy number variation, may account for a significant proportion of the genetic basis of ASD. We present a large scale analysis to identify candidate genes which may contain low-frequency recessive variation contributing to ASD while taking into account the potential contribution of population differences to the genetic heterogeneity of ASD. Our strategy, homozygous haplotype (HH) mapping, aims to detect homozygous segments of identical haplotype structure that are shared at a higher frequency amongst ASD patients compared to parental controls. The analysis was performed on 1,402 Autism Genome Project trios genotyped for 1 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). We identified 25 known and 1,218 novel ASD candidate genes in the discovery analysis including CADM2, ABHD14A, CHRFAM7A, GRIK2, GRM3, EPHA3, FGF10, KCND2, PDZK1, IMMP2L and FOXP2. Furthermore, 10 of the previously reported ASD genes and 300 of the novel candidates identified in the discovery analysis were replicated in an independent sample of 1,182 trios. Our results demonstrate that regions of HH are significantly enriched for previously reported ASD candidate genes and the observed association is independent of gene size (odds ratio 2.10). Our findings highlight the applicability of HH mapping in complex disorders such as ASD and offer an alternative approach to the analysis of genome-wide association data

Assessing change in psychoanalytic psychotherapy of children and adolescents. Today's challenge

This book draws together work from across Europe by leading clinical researchers who have been looking into the effectiveness of psychoanalytic interventions. They are mostly time limited, brief, non-intensive ways of working so are applicable in many settings and can therefore be generalised to other clinical teams. The populations worked with are diverse and often present mainstream services with refractory clinical problems, so an applied psychoanalytic approach is well worth trying given the evidence presented in this volume. There is in addition an excellent theoretical chapter on the issues for such clinical research from Stephen Shirk which merits consideration by those wanting to evaluate their own work. This book has had a long gestation but it is an important contribution to services for child and adolescent mental health services to ensure the full menu of interventions is retained in these times of financial restraint with increasing family distress and concerns about inadequate parenting, family breakdown and troublesome adolescents