School of Medicine

Mania can be confused with ADHD.Child psychiatry researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a small group of preschoolers who appear to suffer from bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness. In findings presented this fall to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the researchers reported they had identified key symptoms that distinguish bipolar disorder from other problems in very young children. Diagnosing bipolar disorder in childhood can be difficult because the manic phase of the illness can be confused with the more common attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The confusion arises because mania and ADHD both involve hyperactivity, irritability and distractibility.

The Department of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine is hosting a program on strategies to help patients with treatment resistant depression.

The Story Link program lets prisoners talk to their children via cassette tapes.Thousands of Missouri inmates have been given a chance to reconnect with their children thanks to a volunteer program led by WUSM’s Dana and Jane Abendschein. The Story Link program allows inmates to record messages and children’s stories onto a cassette, which is then mailed to their families. For many inmates, it’s the only form of communication they have with their children.

By peering into the minds of volunteers preparing to play a brief visual game, neuroscientists at the School of Medicine have found they can predict whether the volunteers will succeed or fail at the game.

EllenbergerThomas Ellenberger, D.V.M., Ph.D., has been named the Raymond H. Wittcoff Professor and head of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at the School of Medicine.

The School of Medicine will receive $5.9 million over the course of five years to begin an ambitious and potentially decades-long search for the earliest signs that a seemingly normal person may someday develop Alzheimer’s disease.

Researchers at the Genome Sequencing Center (GSC) at the School of Medicine will lead the sequencing of the genome of maize, more popularly known to consumers as corn. The National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy allocated a total of $32 million for sequencing maize. The GSC maize genome project will receive $29.5 million of that funding.

A combination of brain scanning with a new imaging agent and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) analysis has left neuroscientists encouraged that they may finally be moving toward techniques for diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease before its clinical symptoms become apparent.

Listed below are this month’s featured news stories. • Pitchers’ elbow (week of Nov. 2) • Mouse love songs (week of Nov. 9) • Early removal of thyroid cancer (week of Nov. 16) • Diabetic epidemic worsens (week of Nov. 23)

Perlmutter (left) checks the lighting at a work area of client Gay Hirsch, who has low vision.Monica Perlmutter is taking her “show on the road” to help older adults with low vision live independently in their homes. Nearly 4 million adults age 65 and older have visual impairment severe enough to interfere with daily activities. Macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, inoperable cataracts and glaucoma are leading causes of low vision.