V. Pereira-Sanchez, United States of America
NYU Grossman School of Medicine Child and Adolescent PsychiatryModerator of 2 Sessions
Presenter of 6 Presentations
Live Q&A
Live Q&A
Live Q&A
Collaborative Internet-based Research in Psychiatry: an Introductory Course by Early-career Psychiatrists
ECP0033 - Neuroimaging in ADHD: How Far Are Scanners From Clinical Psychiatry?
ABSTRACT
Abstract Body
Decades of neuroimaging research in attention/deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have yielded a few apparently firm findings and many open questions. The long-term objective of these efforts is to uncover the underlying brain pathophysiology of the disorder, to reveal reliable biomarkers of prognosis and treatment response, striving for personalized medicine. Unfortunately, neuroimaging research in ADHD and other psychiatric disorders is still unable to inform clinical practice.
This presentation will provide an up-to-date overview of neuroimaging in ADHD, highlighting the most promising results and current challenges of structural and functional research with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Evidence from large, multicentric studies and from highly-sophisticated resting-state functional MRI techniques will be presented; methodological and reproducibility limitations in current literature will be introduced, and the way forward to bring this area of research closer to clinical practice with patients with ADHD will be discused.
Dr. Pereira-Sanchez is conducting original research using resting-state functional MRI to study potential correlates of treatment response to stimulants in children and adolescents with ADHD; he has also recently published two literature reviews of MRI studies in ADHD.
W0059 - Social Media Content Analysis on Twitter to Explore Public Perceptions Regarding Pathological Social Withdrawal (Hikikomori)
ABSTRACT
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Hikikomori is a form of severe social withdrawal, initially described in Japan and recently reported in other countries around the world. Individuals with hikikomori shut themselves in their homes with minimal interaction with society and little participation in school or the workforce.
The nature of hikikomori makes the individuals suffering it a hard-to-reach population. While hikikomori was described in Japan much before the ‘digital revolution’ of the 2000s, the internet, social media, and online gaming have radically changed the way people interact. This may be particularly true among hikikomori who spend much time online for entertainment or social interaction. Given this, the online world has been proposed as an accessible gateway to reach and support individuals with hikikomori.
This talk will present and discuss the results of the Twitter-hikikomori international studies, conducted between 2018-2020 and led by Dr. Pereira-Sanchez, which employed social media mixed quantitative-method analyses to characterize the public conversations related to hikikomori on the social media platform Twitter in several Western languages and Japanese.
As for the results, Twitter data provided evidence that hikikomori extends well beyond Japan examining, and showed that tweets in Japanese are more often are related to personal anecdotes, whereas tweets in Western languages are more often related to hikikomori as a medical issue. Apart from the results of the content analyses studies have been a proof of concept on the use of social media contents to investigate a phenomenon affecting a hard-to-reach population, which may inspire future online-based efforts to better support these populations.