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A new study published in the Journal of Molecular Psychiatry looked at an autism-associated mutation in human neurons. “In this study, we are trying to understand the mechanism underlying a genetic mutation linked to autism,” Dr. Le Wang, lead author, told us. “Since the gene is involved in the information flow in the brain, we wanted to find out if the genetic mutation leads to abnormal information flow in humans using a human neural model.” [More]

Teenagers with positive psychological assets like optimism and feeling loved are more likely to reach their 20s and 30s in good cardiometabolic health. A study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that teens who felt happy, optimistic, had good self-esteem, felt loved and felt a sense of belonging had better cardiometabolic health later in life compared to their peers without these positive psychological assets. [More]

A new study published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry looked at the impact of COVID-19 on psychopathology in children and young people worldwide. “Our study is about tracking what the changes were in children and adolescents’ mental health from before the pandemic to during the pandemic, by bringing together findings from lots of research published in the last two years,” study author Abigail Emma Russell told us. [More]

A new study published in JAMA Pediatrics looked at the association of youth suicides and county-level mental health professional shortage areas in the United States. “We found that two-thirds of U.S. counties have significant shortages of mental health professionals,” study author Jennifer A. Hoffman told us. “Youth who live in counties with shortages of mental health professionals are more likely to die by suicide.” [More]

35% of children injured with a firearm receive a new mental health diagnosis in the year following their injury. Data published recently in the Anals of Surgery found that child survivors of firearm injury have high rates of new mental health diagnoses, even when compared with children who have injuries in motor vehicle accidents. [More]

A new study published in Nature Communications delved more into autism by growing brain-like organoids. “The human brain is unique, and certain aspects of human brain development, and brain diseases, are notoriously difficult to study using animal models,” study author Alex Shcheglovitov, PhD told us. “We wanted to develop a new method to model early aspects of human telencephalic brain development in health and disease. Our approach was to make human brain organoids in a robust and reproducible manner.” [More]

A new study in the Journal of Child Development looked at whether more hours in center-based care cause more externalizing problems. “This study revisits the question of whether increasing a child’s time in center-based care leads to increases in problem behaviors,” study author Catalina Rey-Guerra told us. “We decided to revisit this topic because, for the last four decades, there have been a lot of disagreements around the answer to this question.” [More]

A new study published in the Journal of Child Development looked at developmental changes in students’ use of dimensional comparisons to form ability self-concepts in math and verbal domains. “We know that adolescent students may compare their math performance with their own reading performance to determine whether they are a ‘math person’ or ‘reading person’,” study author Sirui Wan told us. [More]

A new study published in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes looked at longitudinal outcomes in children with HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders in Zambia. “Our study is about cognitive development in children and adolescents with HIV,” study author David Bearden told us. Bearden is an assistant professor of Neurology and Pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center. [More]

A new study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology looked at the mechanisms underlying childhood exposure to blue spaces and adult subjective well-being. “Our study is about the benefits of childhood contact with blue spaces, a collective name to indicate all the areas with waterbodies or watercourses, such as the sea, lakes and rivers,” study author Valeria Vitale told us. “We were hoping to find a positive link between the exposure to blue spaces during childhood and adult well-being and explore potential pathways that may explain this relationship.” [More]