Pediatric psychopharmacology: too much or too little?

This paper provides a selective overview of the past, present and future of pediatric psychopharmacology. The acceptance of medication use in child psychiatry was based on the results of double‐blind, placebo‐controlled trials documenting the efficacy of drug treatments for attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder, enuresis, depression, anxiety disorders, obsessive‐compulsive disorder and psychoses. This period of success was followed by a series of challenges, including a growing awareness of the long‐term adverse effects of medications and of the inadequacy of long‐term drug surveillance. There is great concern today that children are being overtreated with medication, especially in the US. Further advances in pediatric psychopharmacology may come from examination of large medical data sets including both pharmacological and psychiatric information, which could lead to drug repurposing, as well as from preclinical translational studies such as those using human induced pluripotent stem cells.     

Not too excited? Thank your endocannabinoids

Endocannabinoids can mediate neuroprotection, but it is not known how. In this issue of Neuron, Monory et al. use mutant mice and localized viral targeting to produce conditional knockouts of the cannabinoid CB1 receptor. They show that protection against kainic acid-induced seizures and cell death is conferred by CB1Rs on hippocampal glutamatergic nerve terminals.     

Epigenetics? Mediator does that too!

Adding to the concept that Mediator acts as an "integrative hub,"Ding et al. (2008) report in this issue of Molecular Cell that, by facilitating the recruitment of the G9a methyl transferase, Mediator can also promote epigenetic silencing of selected genes.     

Are our universities producing too many PhDs?

As we enter the 21st century, we face a world that will be increasingly dominated by science and technology. More and more jobs will require many of the analytical and thinking skills of a scientist. Citizens everywhere must also become better able to evaluate and understand the judgements of scientific and technical experts when making personal and community decisions. To spread the values and knowledge of science much more widely throughout our societies, we must also spread scientists. Therefore, advanced training in science and the acquisition of important skills through an extensive exposure to research are valuable tools for a wide variety of occupations.