David Rosenberg, M.D., Miriam L. Hamburger Endowed Chair of Child Psychiatry and director of the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Clinical Research Program, recently reported the achievements of two post-doctoral fellows working in his laboratory. Dr. S. Preeya Banerjee published a paper in Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics on a possible new treatment for children with severe phobia of choking on food or liquids. The case report, which followed three children who had undergone extensive medical workups and failed to respond to prior interventions, responded positively to low-dose therapy with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Although Dr. Banerjee emphasizes the preliminary nature of the report and the need for a controlled study, the paper discusses possible mechanisms that might predict rapid and sustained response to treatment in these children.

In addition, Frank McMaster was selected from a pool of 150 applicants as a 2005 Wisconsin Symposium on Emotion Travel Awardee. The focus of the symposium is on genes, brain and emotion.