PROVIDENCE –Bradley Hospital has begun recruiting children for a major study of bipolar disorder that will use magnetic resonance imaging to identify functional and anatomical differences in children with bipolar disorder or generalized anxiety disorder.
The project, led by Dr. Daniel Dickstein, assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at The Warren Alpert Medical School and head of the Pediatric Mood, Imaging and Neurodevelopment (Pedi-MIND) program at Bradley, is supported by a five-year, $1.87 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.
Diagnoses of pediatric bipolar disorder have increased 40-fold in the past decade and now account for 20 percent of all minors discharged from psychiatric hospitals, according to a Bradley news release. There is, however, some debate as to whether the rise is due to better awareness or over-diagnosis.
Dickstein’s study aims to shed some light on the brain processes behind the behaviors that are being attributed to bipolar disorder in children. The goal is to identify and understand the nervous system markers for mood disorders in children, which could lead to more accurate diagnoses and more effective treatments.
For the study, Dickstein is recruiting children and teens between the ages of 7 and 17 who have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder or generalized anxiety disorder, as well as healthy children in the same age range. Following interviews, all participants will be asked to play computer games while having an MRI scan, so researchers can observe how their brains work when they make decisions. All participants will be paid for their time (up to six hours), and those who complete the study will also receive images of their brain on a CD.
Participants must be fluent in English and medically healthy, with no history of head trauma or seizures. They cannot be currently wearing braces or other implanted metal. For more information, call Lisa Goldberg at (401) 793-8200 or go to pedimind.lifespan.org.
