Guest Editors
Elise M. Sannar
University of Colorado, Health Sciences Center
Elise M. Sannar, MD, is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, specializing in assessing and caring for patients with neurodevelopmental disorders. She is a consultant for the Sie Center for Down Syndrome at Children’s Hospital Colorado. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Down Syndrome Medical Interest Group (DSMIG-USA). She is recognized as a national expert in the treatment of Down syndrome regression disorder (DSRD). She is one of the principal investigators in the first National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded study of this disorder.
Elizabeth Margolis
University of Colorado, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Elizabeth Margolis, DO, is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist with a special interest in working with individuals with developmental differences. She is an attending psychiatrist in the University of Colorado’s Child and Adolescent Psychiatry department. Her roles at Children’s Hospital Colorado include serving as a psychiatrist in a special care clinic, a pediatric clinic for complex medical patients, in the Neuropsychiatric Special Care Unit for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and as a psychiatric consultant to primary care providers through the Colorado Pediatric Psychiatry Consultation and Access Program.
Joan Winter
University of Colorado
Joan Winter, MD, is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at the University of Colorado. She is an attending physician in the Neuropsychiatric Special Care Unit at the Children’s Hospital of Colorado, treating children and adolescents with autism and intellectual and developmental disabilities. She also provides general outpatient psychiatric care to children and adolescents through the Pediatric Mental Health Institute at the Children’s Hospital of Colorado.
Collection Overview
Neuropsychiatric disorders are a collection of disorders that involve the overlap of neurobiology with psychiatry. Examples of such disorders include autism spectrum disorder, epilepsy (including genetic epilepsy syndromes), and chromosomal duplications and deletions. Many neuropsychiatric disorders have associated cognitive and behavioral symptoms that impact the lives of affected individuals and their families.
There is limited consensus on the most effective means of assessment and treatment because of the rarity of some of these disorders. Moreover, affected individuals often present with co-morbid neurological conditions, medication sensitivity, varied neurochemical pathways, communication challenges, and medical complexity, further complicating their assessment and treatment.
This Methods Collection aims to outline assessment tools and treatment modalities by gathering insights from experts who treat these complex disorders. Topics of interest include but are not limited to, psychopharmacology, interventional psychiatry, behavioral treatments, and relevant ethical challenges in the field. The collection will feature various studies, including case reports, clinical reviews, and clinical neuroscience research.
The scarcity of existing literature highlights the urgent need to expand academic research in this area. As a result, this collection will serve as a valuable resource for clinicians seeking guidance on how to treat children and adolescents with neuropsychiatric disorders and associated syndromes.
