The Third Reviewer

A polygenic/threshold model of psychiatric disorder was first introduced more than 40 years ago by Gottesman and Shields (). They proposed, following on from the seminal work of Falconer (), that what is inherited is not so much a disorder as a liabili… . . . → Read More: Polygenic Heterogeneity: A Complex Model of Genetic Inheritance in Psychiatric Disorders

For more than a century, clinical investigators have focused on early life as a source of adult psychopathology. Early theories about psychic conflict and toxic parenting have been replaced by more recent formulations of complex interactions of genes a… . . . → Read More: Early Life Programming and Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Background: In the neurodevelopmental disorder autism, several neuroimmune abnormalities have been reported. However, it is unknown whether microglial somal volume or density are altered in the cortex and whether any alteration is associated with age o… . . . → Read More: Microglial Activation and Increased Microglial Density Observed in the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex in Autism

Paloyelis et al. () raise two concerns about the statistical methods used in the original article by Scheres et al. (): first, they indicate that analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) is inappropriate when groups differ on the covariate; and second, they sug… . . . → Read More: What We Can and Cannot Conclude About the Relationship Between Steep Temporal Reward Discounting and Hyperactivity-Impulsivity Symptoms in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Background: Timing abilities are critical to the successful management of everyday activities and personal safety, and timing abnormalities have been argued to be fundamental to impulsiveness, a core symptom of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder … . . . → Read More: Neural Substrates of Impaired Sensorimotor Timing in Adult Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Background: Dopamine D3 receptors are involved in the pathophysiology of several neuropsychiatric conditions. [11C]-(+)-PHNO is a radiolabeled D2 and D3 agonist, suitable for imaging the agonist binding sites (denoted D2HIGH and D3) of these receptors … . . . → Read More: Imaging Dopamine D3 Receptors in the Human Brain with Positron Emission Tomography, [11C]PHNO, and a Selective D3 Receptor Antagonist

In a timely and interesting study, Scheres et al. () examined the association between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) subtype and discounting of delayed rewards in real-time. They found that the ADHD-combined subtype group (henceforth A… . . . → Read More: Are Steeper Discounting Rates in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Specifically Associated with Hyperactivity-Impulsivity Symptoms or Is This a Statistical Artifact?

Background: Patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) experience intense emotions and often show a deficiency of emotion regulation skills. Moreover, they display high prevalence rates of self-injurious behavior. Patients report engaging in s… . . . → Read More: Affect Regulation and Pain in Borderline Personality Disorder: A Possible Link to the Understanding of Self-Injury

Background: Children raised in institutional settings are exposed to social and environmental circumstances that may deprive them of expected environmental inputs during sensitive periods of brain development that are necessary to foster healthy develo… . . . → Read More: Delayed Maturation in Brain Electrical Activity Partially Explains the Association Between Early Environmental Deprivation and Symptoms of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

We thank the authors for their interest in our article (). They raise a question about gender effects and highlight “it would be informative to look at the results stratified by gender.” We agree that examination of gender effects, where feasible, … . . . → Read More: Response to: Testing the Association Between Smoking in Pregnancy and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in a Novel Design

In a recent report in Biological Psychiatry, Thapar et al. () presented an interesting design to evaluate the association between smoking in pregnancy and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the offspring. . . . → Read More: Testing the Association Between Smoking in Pregnancy and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in a Novel Design

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) in the nucleus accumbens has been reported to decrease ratings of depression and anxiety in treatment-resistant depression (). Does DBS in the nucleus accumbens also hold a preventive potential against the development of a … . . . → Read More: Nucleus Accumbens Deep Brain Stimulation Did Not Prevent Suicide Attempt in Tourette Syndrome

Background: When making decisions, children with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) are thought to focus on reward and ignore penalty. This is suggested to be associated with a state of low psychophysiological arousal.Methods: This study investigates … . . . → Read More: Impaired Decision Making in Oppositional Defiant Disorder Related to Altered Psychophysiological Responses to Reinforcement

Background: The nonapeptide oxytocin (OT) has been repeatedly implicated in processes of parent-infant bonding in animal models; yet, its role in the development of human parenting has received less attention and no research has addressed the involveme… . . . → Read More: Oxytocin and the Development of Parenting in Humans

Background: Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are characterized by social, communication, and behavioral deficits and complex genetic etiology. A recent study of 517 ASD families implicated DOCK4 by single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) association and a… . . . → Read More: Characterization of a Family with Rare Deletions in CNTNAP5 and DOCK4 Suggests Novel Risk Loci for Autism and Dyslexia

Background: Language delay is a hallmark feature of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The identification of word boundaries in continuous speech is a critical first step in language acquisition that can be accomplished via statistical learning and relia… . . . → Read More: No Neural Evidence of Statistical Learning During Exposure to Artificial Languages in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Background: Recent neurobiological models on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as well as findings from imaging studies suggest a crucial involvement of dopaminergic midbrain nuclei, especially the substantia nigra (SN), in the pathogenes… . . . → Read More: Increased Echogenicity of the Substantia Nigra in Children and Adolescents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder