Monthly Archives:
September 2024

Bennett’s PANS PANDAS Story
Bennett’s PANS PANDAS Story

  Bennett was a typically developing 7-year-old boy when he started second grade, the first year back to school full time after COVID-19, without masks. That December, he came down...

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The Story of Emily The Great
The Story of Emily The Great

This is the journey of Emily, who is now 16. She began experiencing PANS symptoms in 2020 during the height of COVID-19; before that, Emily was a typical kid and did all the things that girls her age...

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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Other Specified Anxiety Disorder in an 8-Year-Old Post-respiratory Infection: A Case Report

Tran, Michael; Amador, Alcides; and Camacho Bermudez, Sofia, “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Other Specified Anxiety Disorder in an 8-Year-Old Post-respiratory Infection: A Case Report” (2024). Research Colloquium. 91.https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/colloquium/2024/posters/91

Conclusions: This case underscores the importance of considering infectious etiologies in the differential diagnosis of sudden-onset psychiatric symptoms in pediatric patients. The positive response to Sertraline and the proposed CBT highlights the potential benefits of a combined pharmacological and therapeutic approach in managing OCD and anxiety disorders. Continued follow-up and treatment adaptation is essential to ensure sustained improvement and quality of life for pediatric patients with similar presentations.

A population-based multigenerational family co-aggregation study of severe infections and obsessive-compulsive disorder

Pol-Fuster J., Fernández de la Cruz L., Beucke J., Hesselmark E., Crowley J.J., de Schipper E., Brikell I., Chang Z., D’Onofrio B.M., Larsson H., Lichtenstein P., Kuja-Halkola, R. & Mataix-Cols D., A population-based multigenerational family co-aggregation study of severe infections and obsessive-compulsive disorder, Biological Psychiatry (2024), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.biopsych.2024.09.004.

This large population-based study in Sweden investigated the potential link between severe infections and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) through a familial co-aggregation approach. By analyzing data from over 4.9 million individuals born between 1960 and 2008, researchers explored the risk of OCD among relatives of those with severe infections, spanning varying degrees of genetic relatedness. The study found that the risk of OCD increased with closer genetic ties, with monozygotic twins showing the highest correlation. A dose-response relationship between the number of infections and the odds of OCD was also identified. These findings remained robust even after adjusting for comorbid autoimmune disorders and infections in relatives. The results suggest that genetic factors play a significant role in the observed association, pointing to shared genetic susceptibilities between infections and OCD. This supports the idea that genetic pleiotropy—where the same genes influence multiple traits—may contribute to both infection susceptibility and OCD risk. The study highlights the importance of considering both genetic and environmental factors in understanding OCD development.