Scientific Program

ESSENCE 2018 is about one of the most prevalent health problems in our societies. ESSENCE affects at least one in ten people across the planet. ESSENCE includes ADHD, autism, intellectual developmental disorder, language disorder, dyslexia, developmental coordination disorder, tic disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and reactive attachment disorder. It leads on to a range of health, academic and adjustment problems, including psychiatric disorder, drug abuse, eating disorders and obesity, chronic fatigue and pain disorders, and, in some cases, criminality, accidents and premature death. The conference brings together the world leaders in the field and gets you up-to-date with what we know and what should be done in order to prevent the sad catastrophy that is unrecognised, excluded and bullied ESSENCE!

ESSENCE 2018 Program Pdf

Scientific Program Overview

Tuesday April 10th

07:30 – 09:30 REGISTRATION

MAIN AUDITORIUM:

09:30 – 09:40 OPENING SESSION: ESSENCE OF THE ESSENCE – C Gillberg, Sweden

09:40 – 10:30 KEYNOTE: ESSENCE: Early Symptomatic Syndromes Eliciting Neurodevelopmental Clinical Examinations – C Gillberg, Sweden

10:30 – 11:00 COFFEE

11:00 – 12:40 AUTISM, ADHD, AND RELATED DISORDERS I

11:00 – 11:20 The reality behind the rise in autism diagnoses – S Lundström, Sweden

11:20 – 11:40 ”Comorbidity” – C Gillberg, Sweden

11:40 – 12:00 Developmental consequences of mindblindness – F Happé, UK

12:00 – 12:20 Neuropsychological function in ESSENCE – A Lundervold, Norway

12:20 – 12:40 Biological rhythms, sleep and ESSENCE – M Posserud, Norway

12:40 – 13:50 LUNCH

13:50 – 15:10 AUTISM, ADHD, AND RELATED DISORDERS II

13:50 – 14:10 The Tic-OCD spectrum – PH Thomsen, Denmark

14:10 – 14:30 Regression in adolescents with autism: causes and consequences – M Ghaziuddin, USA

14:30 – 14:50 Epilepsy and ESSENCE – H Cross, UK

14:50 – 15:10 ADHD and problematic sexual behaviour – N Långström, Sweden

15:10 – 15:40 COFFEE

15:40 – 18:05 AUTISM, ADHD AND RELATED DISORDERS III

15:40 – 16:00 Eating disorders and ESSENCE – M Råstam, Sweden

16:00 – 16:20 Reading, writing and ESSENCE – J Åsberg Johnels, Sweden

16:20 – 16:40 Fragile X syndrome and FMRP: a key to other disorders and effective treatment – R Hagerman, USA

16:40 – 17:00 22q11 deletion syndrome – L Wallin, Sweden

17:00 – 17:30 KEYNOTE: MAPP: Maltreatment-Associated Psychiatric Problems – H Minnis, UK

17:30 – 17:50 SUMMING UP DAY ONE – C Gillberg, Sweden

17:50 – 18:05 ADHD – E Donell, Sweden

18:05 – 18:15 Welcome to Gothenburg – Lord Mayor Lena Malm and Vice President of the Regional Council Per Tenggren

18:15 WELCOME RECEPTION and POSTER EXHIBITION

19:45 GALA DINNER

Wednesday 11th April

MAIN AUDITORIUM:

09:00 – 09:30 KEYNOTE: THE EVER CHANGING BRAIN – N Hadjikhani, USA

09:30 – 10:30 GENETICS, EPIGENETICS, AND THE BRAIN I

09:30 – 09:50 Genetics of ESSENCE – T Bourgeron, France

09:50 – 10:10 Pre- and perinatal factors in ESSENCE – L Thompson, UK

10:10 – 10:30 Population impact of stress, maltreatment and neurodevelopmental problems – P Wilson, UK

10:30 – 11:00 COFFEE

11:00 – 12:10 GENETICS, EPIGENETICS, AND THE BRAIN II

11:00 – 11:20 Cholesterol, steroids, and vitamin D – C Allely, UK

11:20 – 11:40 Neuroanatomy of autism – M Bauman, USA

11:40 – 12:10. KEYNOTE: GENETICS RESEARCH REVEALS THE VARIABILITY OF BRAIN DEFICITS IN AUTISM –

L Waterhouse, USA

12:10 – 13:10 SCREENING AND DIAGNOSIS

12:10 – 12:30 Screening for language disorder and autism- what is the point? – C Miniscalco, Sweden

12:30 – 12:50 Early diagnosis of ESSENCE – E Fernell, Sweden

12:50 – 13:10 ‘Detected’ but ‘undiagnosed’: Intellectual disability in the paediatric clinic – A O’Hare, UK

13:10 – 14:20 LUNCH

14:20 – 15:20 OUTCOME AND INTERVENTION I

14:20 – 14:40 Outcome of ESSENCE – E Billstedt, Sweden

14:40 – 15:00 Girls and women with ESSENCE – S Kopp, Sweden

15:00 – 15:20 Evidence basis for intervention in autism – E Fernell, Sweden

15:20 – 16:00 OUTCOME AND INTERVENTION II

15:20 – 15:40 Psychopharmacology in ESSENCE – J Buitelaar, The Netherlands

15:40 – 16:00 SSRIs for depressed mood in young people with ESSENCE – E Eriksson, Sweden

16:00 – 16:20 COFFEE

16:20 – 17:20 OUTCOME AND INTERVENTION III

16:20 – 16:40 Supplements and diets in ESSENCE – M Johnson, Sweden

16:40 – 17:00 Working with adult women with autism – D Zener, Canada

17:00 – 17:20 Problem solving and parenting programmes – C Puckering, UK

17:20 – 17:30 CLOSING SESSION Summing up day two – C Gillberg, Sweden

Keynote Speakers

Christopher Gillberg

Christopher Gillberg is MD, PhD and Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, since the mid-1980s. He heads the Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Centre. He is one of the world’s most experienced, clinically active, child- and adolescent psychiatrists, with over 40 years of extensive clinical work in treatment of patients and families with complex neurodevelopmental problems. He is the most productive researcher in the history of autism.

In 1993 he was Fulbright Visiting Professor at New York University Medical School. He is Visiting or Honorary Professor at the University of London, University College London (Institute of Child Health), University of Glasgow, University of Edinburgh, the Pasteur Institute, and Kochi University, Japan, and he has previously been Visiting Professor at Odense, Bergen and San Francisco. Christopher Gillberg has published more than 650 peer-reviewed scientific papers on for instance autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, Tourette syndrome, intellectual disability, epilepsy, behavioural phenotype syndromes, and anorexia nervosa.

His research ranges from genetics and basic neuroscience through epidemiology and clinical phenomenology to interventions and outcome. He has written 34 books, which have been published in more than a dozen languages, several of which are standard textbooks in the field of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Autism.

He is an honorary member of the Swedish National Autism Society and ADHD Society (“Attention”). He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences. He is the recipient of many national and international awards including the Fernström Prize for young researchers, the Royal Medal of the Seraphim Order from the Swedish King, the Söderberg Prize in Medicine, and INSAR Lifetime Achievement Award. He supervises and has supervised more than 45 PhD-students.

Nouchine Hadjikhani

Nouchine Hadjikhani is MD, PhD and Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. She is a visiting professor at the Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Centre since 2012. She has been doing brain research since 1993, and has used neuroanatomy, histology, PET, fMRI, DTI, MEG as well as behavioural methods to study the normal and the diseased brain. Her primary research interest was the visual system, and she started studying this aspect of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) inspecting the organization of visual cortex as well as face perception.

Anatomical and functional studies conducted by her team have evidenced the presence of abnormalities in the so-called “mirror neuron” areas (which enable us to mimic and mentally simulate the emotions, behaviour and movement of others) of young adults with high-functioning autism. Her current work is dedicated to understand the neural bases of the deficits of social instinct in ASD, and to develop neural biomarkers that will help to objectify the effect of therapeutic approaches, both behavioural and pharmacological.

Most recently, she demonstrated that affective empathy is preserved in individuals with ASD. In her current research she is exploring emotional cognition in ASD, together with the influence of gaze in face processing. Professor Hadjikhani’s group has also done impressive work in the field of migraine visualizing the changes in neuronal activity during migraine aura.

Lynn Waterhouse

Lynn Waterhouse is PhD and Professor in Global Graduate Programs at the College of New Jersey, USA. She was the director of Child Behavior Study at the College of New Jersey for 31 years. She has been Visiting Professor at University College London 1988 -1989 and at Princeton University 1996 – 1999.

She is a world expert in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and together with Lorna Wing she worked on the APA DSM-III-R diagnostic criteria for autism. She has published more than 60 papers and book chapters.

In 2012 she published the acclaimed book ”Rethinking autism. Variation and Complexity”, that comprehensively reviews research on autism and suggests the evidence points toward “autism” being several disorders rather than one, and the implications thereof for finding a cure.

Helen Minnis

Professor Helen Minnis is Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Director of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) Centre at the University of Glasgow. She has been affiliated with the Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Centre since its inauguration in 2011 and was appointed Visiting Professor in 2014. She spent time working as an Orphanage Doctor in Guatemala in the early 1990s prior to training in Psychiatry, and this stimulated an interest in the effects of early maltreatment on children’s development. Her career has been focussed on conducting research (clinical, epidemiological and trials) with abused and neglected children. This included the first population prevalence studies of Attachment Disorders (in both a total population of children aged 6 and 7 in North Glasgow and more recently in the Growing up in Scotland cohort), clinical, epidemiological and behavioural genetics studies demonstrating the neurodevelopmental complexities and latent vulnerabilities often found in abused and neglected children and research specifically focussing on techniques to identify hidden children in the population.

In partnership with the UK National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), she is Chief Investigator of the Best Services Trial (BeST?), a randomised controlled trial of the New Orleans Intervention Model for Infant Mental Health. BeST? aims to determine the best way to intervene for young abused and neglected children coming into foster care so as to improve their route to permanent placement and mental health. Photo: Medical Illustration Services, NHSGGC