Psychotic symptoms in children may have genetic causes

A 6-year-old boy began hearing voices coming from walls and the school walkie-talkie, telling him to hurt himself and others

Although children are known for their active imagination, they rarely have true psychotic symptoms

Today, through the Early Psychiatric Investigation Center (Epicenter) at the Boston Children's Center, Gonzalez-Heydrich and his colleagues Dr.

Genetic causes of psychosis: copy number variation

In the study, more than 70 percent of children began experiencing psychosis before the age of

"Our findings provide strong evidence

End years of uncertainty

Families tend to breathe a sigh of relief

Gonzalez-Heydrich said: "Many parents feel they are being observed under a microscope and are even accused of triggering their children's symptoms

In other cases, psychosis may be overlooked because the child also has autism or other developmental disorders

Finally, well-meaning clinicians may be reluctant to stigmatize children by diagnosing them with psychosis, preferring to observe and wait

"The longer mental illness goes untreated, the harder it is to treat later," Grane said

How do parents identify psychosis?

Many children behave like psychopaths, such as having an imaginary friend

In some children, psychotic symptoms recur

Early symptoms of psychosis may be common

Gonzalez-Heydrich said: "It's not just kids who think someone is talking about them

From research to support and care

In addition to encouraging treatment, finding CNV in mentally ill children allows other family members to be tested to determine if they are at risk

Brownstein, the scientific director of the Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research at Boston Children's and a member of the Department of Genetics and Genomics, oversaw the test

"We don't have drugs that target copy number variants yet," Bronstein said
.
"But when parents get together, they can organize and identify studies
specifically for their specific CNV.
" We can study their children as a group and find effective treatments
faster.
”

Bronstein and Duarte were co-first authors
of the paper.
Glen, Gonzalez-Heydrich and Sébastien Jacquemont, MD of Université de Montréal, are co-senior authors
。 The work was supported by the Tommy Fuss Neuropsychiatric Research Center for Children in Boston, the Center for The Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities at Boston Children's Hospital (supported by NIH Youness Kennedy Schleffer National Institute for Child Health and Human Development P50HD105351), the NIH National Institute for Mental Health (U01 mhh119690), the Stanley Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and harvard's Broad Institute, and the Jonathan and Robin Klein, Annie, and PaulOmacus families
。