[Johannes Trüper--mediator between child and adolescent psychiatry and pedagogy].

Objective: The development of the child and adolescent psychiatry as an independent speciality is not only a result of sub-specialisation within medicine or psychiatry but also a result of interaction with pedagogy, psychology, and philosophy. Within this framework, pedagogy (and more specifically orthopedagogy) has played an essential scientific role. This will be demonstrated by the work of Johannes Trüper.

Endophenotype properties of niacin sensitivity as marker of impaired prostaglandin signalling in schizophrenia.

Background: Disruption of arachidonic acid pathways and prostaglandin signalling has been implicated in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia.

Aims: We intended to study prostaglandin signalling in groups of young schizophrenia patients, first-degree relatives, and healthy controls in order to assess effects of heritability on this biological marker-one important endophenotype criterion.

Method: Namely, we assessed intensity of methylnicotinate skin flushing using optical reflection spectroscopy.

[Survey of fMRI results regarding a phonological deficit in children and adults with dyslexia: fundamental deficit or indication of compensation?].

Early neuroimaging studies exploring the neurobiological correlates of the phonological deficit in dyslexia were restricted to adult probands with dyslexia due to the exposure to radioactivity in the course of PET measurements. The differences in activation between normal adult readers and adults with dyslexia recorded in these studies left open the issue of whether or not these are indeed fundamental activation deficits or only a reflection of lifelong experience with poor reading and writing skills and thus should be interpreted as a sign of compensation. Development of fMRI in recent years has enabled the investigation of children with dyslexia in order to explore the neurobiological activation patterns that underlie dyslexia.

Changes of pain perception, autonomic function, and endocrine parameters during treatment of anorectic adolescents.

Objectives: The underlying mechanisms of reduced pain perception in anorexia nervosa (AN) are unknown. To gain more insight into the pathology, the authors investigated pain perception, autonomic function, and endocrine parameters before and during successful treatment of adolescent AN patients.

Method: Heat pain perception was assessed in 15 female adolescent AN patients and matched controls.

Impaired working speed and executive functions as frontal lobe dysfunctions in young first-degree relatives of schizophrenic patients.

The aim of the investigation was to detect neuropsychological markers, such as sustained and selective attention and executive functions, which contribute to the vulnerability to schizophrenia especially in young persons. Performance was assessed in 32 siblings and children of schizophrenic patients and 32 matched controls using Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Colour-Word-Interference-Test, Trail Making Test, and d2-Concentration-Test. The first-degree relatives showed certain impairments on all four tests, in particular, slower times on all time-limited tests.

[First effects of training phonological awareness in two age cohorts of kindergarten children].

Objective: This study investigated to what extent young kindergarten children already benefit from training phonological awareness.

Methods: The training program used here was the German "Würzburg training program of phonological awareness". The control group participated in the regular kindergarten program.

How to avoid spurious cluster validation? A methodological investigation on simulated and fMRI data.

This paper presents an evaluation of a common approach that has been considered as a promising option for exploratory fMRI data analyses. The approach includes two stages: creating from the data a sequence of partitions with increasing number of subsets (clustering) and selecting the one partition in this sequence that exhibits the clearest indications of an existing structure (cluster validation). In order to achieve that the selected partition is actually the best characterization of the data structure, previous studies were directed to find the most appropriate validity function(s).

Multicenter P300 brain mapping of impaired attention to cues in hyperkinetic children.

Objective: To measure specific neurophysiological attention deficits in children with hyperkinetic disorders (HD; the ICD-10 diagnosis for severe and pervasive attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD]).

Method: In a multicenter sample of 148 children with HD and control children aged 8 to 14 years, event-related potential maps were recorded during a cued continuous performance test (A-X/O-X). Maps to cues (requiring attention but no response) and distractors and performance were tested for differences between age- and sex-matched HD and control groups (n = 57 each), as well as between clinics (n = 5).

Phonological processing in dyslexic children: a study combining functional imaging and event related potentials.

Difficulties in phonological processing are currently considered one of the major causes for dyslexia. Nine dyslexic children and eight control children were investigated using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during non-oral reading of German words. All subjects silently read words and pronounceable non-words in an event related potentials (ERP) investigation, as well.