Prof. Dr. Dr. Tobias Banaschewski ; Prof. Dr. Luis Augusto Rohde
Penerbit
:
S. Karger AG, Switzerland, 2008
Kolasi
:
264 p. : tab. ; fig. ; bibl.
Digital Copy
:
5
Pinjaman Aktif
:
0
Synopsis
:
Several epidemiological studies have documented that mental health disorders are
extremely prevalent in children and adolescents with rates varying from 10 to 20%
depending on whether the evaluation of impairment is part of the assessment [1, 2]. In
addition, data from longitudinal studies and retrospective investigations in adulthood
have demonstrated that a substantial proportion of psychiatric diagnoses identified in
adults have their roots in childhood and adolescence [3, 4]. Moreover, several reports
in the literature have also documented the substantial amount of burden that child
mental health problems impose on children, their families and society in general [5].
Thus, understanding child psychiatric disorders is a priority in the worldwide mental
health agenda based on its prevalence, continuity into adulthood and impact.
Throughout the last decades, several different frameworks have influenced the
field of child psychiatry. In the past, the field was strongly based on psychodynamic
and social concepts [6]. In the last two decades, an enormous amount of data has
emerged in areas such as neuroimaging, molecular genetics, neuropsychology, and
neurophysiology, helping to better understand the biological basis of the majority of
child mental disorders. Thus, we have moved from attributing the causes of severe
child mental disorders like autism primarily to problematic mother-infant relation-
ships to an era in which huge genome-wide scanning studies and longitudinal gene-
environmental investigations are beginning to reveal the complex interplay of nature
and nurture in normal development and in the etiology of child mental disorders [7].
Advances in biological child psychiatry may ultimately facilitate our understanding of
how environmentally and psychosocially mediated risk processes operate on the
developing brain and also increase our knowledge of the developmental trajectories
that occur across the life course
