Eric Bellman LCSW

Inspiration and Education

DMDD in Children and Facial Emotion Recognition Treatment
Skip to content
  • Home
  • Health & Education
  • Outreach
  • Research Priorities
  • Funding
  • Labs at NIMH
  • News 
  • About Us
National Institutes of Health 
  • Contact Us
  • Get Email Updates
Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Follow us on YouTube Follow us on Google Plus
Logo for the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). 

Transforming the understanding
and treatment of mental illnesses.

 
  • HOME
  • HEALTH & EDUCATION
  • OUTREACH
  • RESEARCH PRIORITIES
  • FUNDING
  • LABS AT NIMH
  • NEWS 
    • Science News
    • Multimedia
    • Image Library
    • Newsletters
    • NIMH News Feeds
  • ABOUT US
Home > News > Science News > Science News from 2016

Recent News

  • Can Game Tame Kids’ Temper Tantrums?June 22, 2016
  • Webinars: Global Mental Health & Disparities ResearchJune 8, 2016
  • Brain Connectivity Gets PersonalJune 7, 2016
  • Making Mental Health a Global PriorityMay 20, 2016
  • Presidential Award Goes to NIMH GranteesMay 11, 2016

News by Year

  • 2016
  •  
  • 2015
  •  
  • 2014
  •  
  • 2013
  •  
  • 2012
  • 2011
  •  
  • 2010
  •  
  • 2009
  •  
  • 2008
  •  
  • 2007
  • 2006
  •  
  • 2005
  •  
  • 2004
  •  
  • 2003
  •  
  • 2002

News by Topic

DISORDERS

  • Anxiety Disorders (43 items)
  • Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) (32 items)
  • Autism (92 items)
  • Bipolar Disorder (66 items)
  • Borderline Personality Disorder (7 items)
  • Depression (158 items)
  • Eating Disorders (11 items)
  • Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) (13 items)
  • Panic Disorder (6 items)
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (26 items)
  • Schizophrenia (92 items)
  • Social Phobia (4 items)

POPULATIONS

  • Children and Adolescents (180 items)
  • Global Mental Health (2 items)
  • Men’s Mental Health (13 items)
  • Military Service Members (6 items)
  • Older Adults (15 items)
  • Women’s Mental Health (15 items)

RESEARCH

  • BRAIN Initiative (4 items)
  • Basic Research (222 items)
  • Clinical Research and Trials (131 items)
  • Mental Health Services Research (39 items)
  • RDoC (10 items)
  • Research Funding (51 items)
  • Training (2 items)

OTHER

  • Alzheimer’s Disease (8 items)
  • Brain Anatomy and Physiology (71 items)
  • Coping with Traumatic Events (16 items)
  • Diversity and Ethnic Groups (27 items)
  • Genetics (67 items)
  • HIV/AIDS (31 items)
  • Medications (95 items)
  • NIMH (98 items)
  • Prevention (23 items)
  • Psychotherapies (25 items)
  • Recovery Act (13 items)
  • Statistics (35 items)
  • Suicide Prevention (41 items)
  • Treatments (81 items)

Recent News

  • Can Game Tame Kids’ Temper Tantrums?June 22, 2016
  • Webinars: Global Mental Health & Disparities ResearchJune 8, 2016
  • Brain Connectivity Gets PersonalJune 7, 2016
  • Making Mental Health a Global PriorityMay 20, 2016
  • Presidential Award Goes to NIMH GranteesMay 11, 2016

News by Year

  • 2016
  •  
  • 2015
  •  
  • 2014
  •  
  • 2013
  •  
  • 2012
  • 2011
  •  
  • 2010
  •  
  • 2009
  •  
  • 2008
  •  
  • 2007
  • 2006
  •  
  • 2005
  •  
  • 2004
  •  
  • 2003
  •  
  • 2002

News by Topic

DISORDERS

  • Anxiety Disorders (43 items)
  • Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) (32 items)
  • Autism (92 items)
  • Bipolar Disorder (66 items)
  • Borderline Personality Disorder (7 items)
  • Depression (158 items)
  • Eating Disorders (11 items)
  • Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) (13 items)
  • Panic Disorder (6 items)
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (26 items)
  • Schizophrenia (92 items)
  • Social Phobia (4 items)

POPULATIONS

  • Children and Adolescents (180 items)
  • Global Mental Health (2 items)
  • Men’s Mental Health (13 items)
  • Military Service Members (6 items)
  • Older Adults (15 items)
  • Women’s Mental Health (15 items)

RESEARCH

  • BRAIN Initiative (4 items)
  • Basic Research (222 items)
  • Clinical Research and Trials (131 items)
  • Mental Health Services Research (39 items)
  • RDoC (10 items)
  • Research Funding (51 items)
  • Training (2 items)

OTHER

  • Alzheimer’s Disease (8 items)
  • Brain Anatomy and Physiology (71 items)
  • Coping with Traumatic Events (16 items)
  • Diversity and Ethnic Groups (27 items)
  • Genetics (67 items)
  • HIV/AIDS (31 items)
  • Medications (95 items)
  • NIMH (98 items)
  • Prevention (23 items)
  • Psychotherapies (25 items)
  • Recovery Act (13 items)
  • Statistics (35 items)
  • Suicide Prevention (41 items)
  • Treatments (81 items)

Game Corrects Children’s Misreading of Emotional Faces to Tame Irritability

June 22, 2016 • Science Update

A computer game that changes a tendency to misread ambiguous faces as angry is showing promise as a potential treatment for irritability in children.  The game shifts a child’s judgment for perceiving ambiguous faces from angry to happy.  In a small pilot study, irritable children who played it experienced less irritability, accompanied by changes in activation of mood-related brain circuitry. Researchers are now following up with a larger study to confirm its effectiveness.

Melissa Brotman, Ph.D., Ellen Leibenluft, M.D., Joel Stoddard, M.D., of the NIMH Emotion and Development Branch, and colleagues, reported on findings of their pilot study of “interpretation bias training” for child irritability online January 8, 2016 in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology.

About 3 percent of youth experience chronic severe irritability. They are prone to temper outbursts and are often in a grumpy mood. Parents complain of having to “walk on eggshells” to avoid unleashing verbal – and sometimes physical – outbursts. These behaviors can lead to problems with friends, family, and at school.

While irritability is common in disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and oppositional defiant disorder , it is a core feature of disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD), which is associated with risk for developing mood and anxiety disorders – and socioeconomic underachievement later  in life.

While research suggests that parent training, psychotherapy, and some medications may be helpful for severe irritability, there are no established treatments for DMDD. Evidence suggests that irritable youth with DMDD tend to misperceive emotional expressions. Compared to healthy controls, children with DMDD were more prone to rate neutral faces as angry. So Leibenluft’s team set out to test interpretation bias training (IBT), a computer game designed to diminish irritable children’s tendency to view ambiguous faces as angry.

Participants rated a continuum of 15 ambiguous faces appearing on a computer monitor as either happy or angry.  After computer training, the children shifted their ratings toward seeing some of these ambiguous faces as “happy.” This effect was maintained for at least 2 weeks and was associated with decreased irritability, as rated by parents and by clinicians who interviewed both parents and children.

Some of these DMDD participants also performed a face-viewing task while their brain activity was being measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). They showed activity changes in emotional learning areas suggesting that the computer-based training may alter neural responses to emotional faces.

Encouraged by these findings, the researchers have launched a larger, more controlled study to learn whether IBT might be effective as a treatment. They are also testing cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), a talk therapy that aims to change behaviors in response to frustrating events. These are among the first non-drug interventions that seek to help those with DMDD.

Families with affected children can choose to receive CBT alone, IBT alone, or IBT followed by CBT. Those who elect IBT will perform most computer training sessions at home, over the course of a training program which can last from 3 to 13 weeks. Participants who are interested in brain scanning will also undergo before-and-after fMRI scans while they are looking at the same ambiguous faces presented in the training sessions. The researchers hope these scans will show changes in brain activity that relate to symptom improvement following treatment.

“The training may be calming irritability by altering circuit activity underlying interpretive biases and – hopefully – reducing anger-based reactions like outbursts,” said Leibenluft.

a chart shows a woman's happy, angry, fearful, and neutral facial expressions

Facial expressions were morphed with neutral (left) to create varying intensities of emotion. Top row: happy. Middle row: angry. Bottom row: fearful.
Source: NIMH Emotion and Development Branch

Read transcript.

Read transcript.

Read transcript.

Read transcript.

Read transcript.

Reference

Neural Correlates of Irritability in Disruptive Mood Dysregulation and Bipolar Disorders.  Wiggins JL, Brotman MA, Adleman NE, Kim P, Oakes AH, Reynolds RC, Chen G, Pine DS, Leibenluft E. Am J Psychiatry. 2016 Feb 19:appiajp201515060833. [Epub ahead of print]PMID: 26892942

NIMH research studies focusing on severe irritability are enrolling participants ages 6-16. For more information, visit the website

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/labs-at-nimh/join-a-study/children/children-irritability.shtml, call 301-496-8381 or email irritablekids@mail.nih.gov

Illustration of irritable child adapted from Crimfants (http://flickr.com/photos/crimfants/327861820/ ) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0) ], via Wikimedia Commons,

Share this page on Facebook.Share this page on TwitterShare this page on Google+.Share this page by EmailLaunch NIMH print application.

Contact(s)

Jules Asher
NIMH Press Office
301-443-4536
NIMHpress@nih.gov

More Science News about

  • Children and Adolescents

Contact the Press Office

  • 301-443-4536
  • NIMHpress@nih.gov

Press Resources

  • Mental Health Information
  • Summaries of Scientific Meetings
  • Information about NIMH
  • RePORTER: Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tool Expenditures and Results 
  • Recommendations for Reporting on Suicide
  • News from the Field 

News from the Field

NIMH-Funded Science on EurekAlert

  • Low Attention Control in Early Adolescence is a Genetic Risk Factor for Anxiety Disorders 
  • Neurologic Symptoms Common in Early HIV Infection 
  • Autism with Intellectual Disability Linked to Mother's Immune Dysfunction During Pregnancy 

More News From the Field... 

  • Contact Us
  • Staff Directories
  • Privacy Notice
  • Policies
  • FOIA 
  • Accessibility
  • Topic Finder
  • Publicaciones en Español
 Follow us with addThis Follow us NIMH Newsletter Follow us NIMH RSS Feed Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Follow us on YouTube Follow us on Google Plus Follow us NIMH widget
  • Logo for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
  • Logo for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
  • Logo for USA.gov: Government Made Easy.

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

#jsAddCharts($html)

Contact Eric Bellman LCSW at: westlakedr@aol.com  
 Office
32129 lindero Canyon Road Suite 108-E
Westlake Village
CA. 91361   

updated  10/17/2022
     

Home

The Right Therapy

About Eric Bellman

Bellman Syndrome

Clinical Section

Multivariate Diagnosis

Ideas and Questions

Diagrams

Examples and Cases

Putting It Together

Computer Analogy

Mindfulness Section

Mindfulness Questions

Some Questions

Meditation

Meditation page two

Painting after Meditation

Photos after Meditation

Photos again

Photos page again

A Safe Place

Honest Answers

NIH BlOG

NIH Brain and Meds

abstracts from NIH/Pubmed

NIH BlOG-Children

NIH:DMDD in children

New Brain Mapping

NIH: Borderline help

Helpful Links Section

Important Links

PTSD Veterans links

Make Online Payment