“Unlike the rest of us, children with OCD never get the all-clear signal because abnormalities in the brain’s light switch, glutamate, disrupt the structure, chemistry and function of the brain’s arousal center, the anterior cingulate cortex causing it to misfire and go haywire.. Instead it warns children with OCD that the situation is getting more dangerous and more unsafe,” Dr. Rosenberg said.
As part of the ABC interview, Dr. Rosenberg shared that his team’s research is focused on exploring “how specific brain patterns predict response to particular treatment; how abnormalities in specific glutamate genes lead to brain glutamate abnormalities that we can measure with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and how these glutamate abnormalities disrupt the structure, chemistry and functioning of the anterior cingulate cortex.”
Dr. Rosenberg said that he and his researchers believe that within the next ten (10) years there will be ten (10) different subtypes of OCD identified. While glutamate-targeted medicines are being used clinically in patients with treatment resistant OCD, newer and more effective and selective glutamate medicines are being developed and tested. In this new era of modern biological psychiatry, advances in MRI, genetics and neuroscience labs are being translated directly into the clinic, helping patients.
“We can’t lump and treat all OCD the same, especially since there are distinct brain abnormalities,” Dr. Rosenberg said. “Can you imagine diagnosing and treating cancer based on history alone? It’s unimaginable. Yet that’s what psychiatrists do every day. We need objective markers to better diagnose and treat psychiatric illness, because that knowledge heals and defeats ignorance and stigma.” One of the hardest parts of my job as a child psychiatrist is convincing good parents and their children that they are not to blame for their OCD.
Dr. Rosenberg also discussed the research of Vaibhav Diwadkar, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences at Wayne State University School of Medicine, who uses functional MRI to examine neural network dysfunction in children with OCD.
“His work is the new frontier and puts the Detroit Medical Center and the Children’s Hospital of Michigan and Wayne State University on the cutting edge,” Dr. Rosenberg said. “He is demonstrating how brain regions in childhood OCD don’t talk to each other properly and misfire, going haywire. His work at Wayne State University is becoming the gold standard, and people from all over the world are coming to him for his expertise.”
“Dr. Rosenberg and his team of researchers are on the frontlines in the fight against childhood OCD,” said Children’s Hospital of Michigan CEO Larry Gold. “Dr. Rosenberg and his colleagues have the opportunity to improve and customize treatment for children with OCD. It’s advanced medical research like this that provides another compelling example of how the doctors on staff at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan help to fulfill the hospital’s steadfast mission to improve the health of all children every day,” Gold said.
This will be Dr. Rosenberg’s second appearance on national television with ABC. He was interviewed by ABC’s David Muir for a 2009 “Primetime” program about OCD in adolescents (rebroadcast on a 20/20 special report in 2012 and on the Oprah Winfrey Network) and his then recent findings involving the role of glutamate in OCD. In collaboration with researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan, University of Michigan, and University of Toronto/ Hospital for Sick Kids, Dr. Rosenberg discovered that glutamate plays a key role in children with OCD. The research found that those abnormal glutamate levels in certain brain regions are reversible with effective treatment. Dr. Rosenberg leads a large consortium funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIHM) conducting comprehensive clinical, genetic and MRI assessments in children with OCD. Wayne State University and the Children’s Hospital of Michigan are the lead/coordinating centers for this research. All of the MRI studies are performed at the Detroit Medical Center’s Children’s Hospital of Michigan, the only pediatric facility in the country with both positron emission tomography (PET) and high field MRI scanning available in house. This state-of-the-art infrastructure and imaging facility is one of the reasons patients and their families come to Detroit and the Children’s Hospital of Michigan from all over the country.
###
About the Children’s Hospital of Michigan, www.childrensdmc.org
For more than 125 years, the Children’s Hospital of Michigan is the first hospital in the state dedicated exclusively to the treatment of children. With more than 40 pediatric medical and surgical specialties and services, the hospital is a leader internationally in neurology and neurosurgery, cardiology, oncology, and diagnostic services; it is ranked one of America’s best hospitals for children and sees more children than any hospital in the state. More Michigan pediatricians are trained at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan than at any other facility.
Children’s Hospital of Michigan is one of eight hospitals operated by the Detroit Medical Center (DMC). The DMC is proud to be the Official Healthcare Services Provider of the Detroit Tigers, Detroit Red Wings and Detroit Pistons.
About Wayne State University, www.wayne.edu
Wayne State University is a premier urban research institution offering more than 400 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to nearly 32,000 students. Its School of Medicine is the largest single-campus medical school in the nation with more than 1,200 medical students. In addition to undergraduate medical education, the school offers master’s degree, Ph.D. and M.D.-Ph.D. programs in 14 areas of basic science to about 400 students annually.