Network


Latest external collaboration on country level. Dive into details by clicking on the dots.

Hotspot


Dive into the research topics where Beverly Nelson is active.

Publication


Featured researches published by Beverly Nelson.


Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry | 1996

Childhood and Adolescent Depression: A Review of the Past 10 Years. Part II

Boris Birmaher; Neal D. Ryan; Douglas E. Williamson; David A. Brent; Joan Kaufman; Ronald E. Dahl; James M. Perel; Beverly Nelson

OBJECTIVE To qualitatively review the literature of the past decade covering the epidemiology, clinical characteristics, natural course, biology, and other correlates of early-onset major depressive disorder (MDD) and dysthymic disorder (DD). METHOD A computerized search for articles published during the past 10 years was made and selected studies are presented. RESULTS Early-onset MDD and DD are frequent, recurrent, and familial disorders that tend to continue into adulthood, and they are frequently accompanied by other psychiatric disorders. These disorders are usually associated with poor psychosocial and academic outcome and increased risk for substance abuse, bipolar disorder, and suicide. In addition, DD increases the risk for MDD. There is a secular increase in the prevalence of MDD, and it appears that MDD is occurring at an earlier age in successive cohorts. Several genetic, familial, demographic, psychosocial, cognitive, and biological correlates of onset and course of early-onset depression have been identified. Few studies, however, have examined the combined effects of these correlates. CONCLUSIONS Considerable advances have been made in our knowledge of early-onset depression. Nevertheless, further research is needed in understanding the pathogenesis of childhood mood disorders. Toward this end, studies aimed at elucidating mechanisms and interrelationships among the different domains of risk factors are needed.


Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry | 1993

The Psychosocial Functioning and Family Environment of Depressed Adolescents

Joaquim Puig-Antich; Joan Kaufman; Neal D. Ryan; Douglas E. Williamson; Ronald E. Dahl; Ellen Lukens; George Todak; Paul Ambrosini; Harris Rabinovich; Beverly Nelson

OBJECTIVE This study examined measures of functional impairment and family relations in a sample of 62 adolescents with major depressive disorder (MDD) and 38 normal controls with no history of psychiatric illness. METHOD Ratings of the following domains were obtained: mother-child relations, father-child relations, spousal relations, sibling relations, peer relations, and school performance. Ratings of each domain for the 3-month period preceding the assessment were derived from information obtained using a semistructured interview administered independently to the adolescents and one of their parents. RESULTS Adolescents with MDD were found to have severe difficulties in all areas. Ninety percent of the depressed adolescents had scores greater than 2 SD above the mean of the normal controls on one or more of the domain ratings. In addition, adolescents with difficulties in parent-child relations were more likely than those adolescents without problems in family relations to have difficulties in peer relations and school performance. CONCLUSIONS The authors discuss the importance of systematically examining psychosocial variables in future studies of the etiology, course, and treatment of MDD in adolescents.


Biological Psychiatry | 1997

The Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone Challenge in Depressed Abused, Depressed Nonabused, and Normal Control Children

Joan Kaufman; Boris Birmaher; James M. Perel; Ronald E. Dahl; Paula Moreci; Beverly Nelson; William W. Wells; Neal D. Ryan

Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis disturbances in depressed children with a history of abuse were examined. Thirteen depressed abused, 13 depressed nonabused, and 13 normal control children were given 1.0 microgram/kg of human corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) intravenously. Blood samples for corticotropin (ACTH) and cortisol were obtained at nine intervals. When compared to depressed nonabused and normal control children, depressed abused children had significantly greater peak, total, and net ACTH secretion post-CRH. Increased ACTH secretion was only observed in depressed abused children experiencing ongoing chronic adversity (marital violence, emotional abuse, poverty, lack of supports). The pattern of findings of the depressed abused children experiencing ongoing adversity parallels the pattern of HPA axis dysregulation reported in animal studies of chronic stress. They add to a growing body of literature suggesting measures of past trauma and current adversity are important sources of variability in psychobiological correlates of major depression.


Journal of Affective Disorders | 1990

EEG sleep in adolescents with major depression: the role of suicidality and inpatient status

Ronald E. Dahl; Joaquim Puig-Antich; Neal D. Ryan; Beverly Nelson; Susan Dachille; Steven L. Cunningham; Laura Trubnick; Timmothy P. Klepper

All night sleep EEG recordings were performed for three consecutive nights in 27 adolescents with a diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD) and 30 normal adolescent controls. Group comparisons between the entire MDD group and the normal controls revealed no significant diagnostic group differences for any of the major sleep variables. Analyses within subgroups of MDD adolescents, however, revealed heterogeneity of EEG sleep findings in association with suicidality and inpatient status. The findings of this study suggest that the discrepancies among the EEG sleep studies in adolescent MDD may be accounted for by the relative proportions of inpatients, suicidality, or bipolarity within the MDD sample being studied.


Biological Psychiatry | 1996

The relationship between longitudinal clinical course and sleep and cortisol changes in adolescent depression

Uma Rao; Ronald E. Dahl; Neal D. Ryan; Boris Birmaher; Douglas E. Williamson; Donna E. Giles; Radhika Rao; Joan Kaufman; Beverly Nelson

This study examined the relationship between longitudinal clinical course and sleep and cortisol findings in adolescent unipolar major depressive disorder (MDD). Subjects were 28 adolescents (15.4 +/- 1.3 years) systematically diagnosed with unipolar MDD and 35 group-matched normal controls who participated in EEG sleep and neuroendocrine studies. Follow-up clinical assessments were conducted 7.0 +/- 0.5 years later in 94% of the original cohort. Although initial group comparisons failed to show significant differences in biologic measures, analyses incorporating clinical follow-up reveal that changes in sleep and cortisol measures are associated with differential longitudinal course. Normal controls who would develop depression after the biologic studies had shown significantly higher density of rapid eye movements (REM) and a trend for reduced REM latency compared to controls with no psychiatric disorder at follow-up. Depressed subjects with a recurrent unipolar course showed a trend towards elevated plasma cortisol near sleep onset compared to MDD subjects with no further episodes during the follow-up interval.


Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica | 1989

Cortisol secretion in adolescents with major depressive disorder

Ronald E. Dahl; Joaquim Puig-Antich; Neal D. Ryan; Beverly Nelson; Hana Novacenko; J. Twomey; Doug Williamson; Raymond R. Goetz; Paul Ambrosini

Plasma cortisol concentrations were determined every 20 min for 24 h, in a nonstressful environment, among 48 rigorously assessed, mostly outpatient, drug‐free adolescent subjects during an episode of major depression (MDD) and among 40 normal adolescent subjects. There were no significant differences in the 24‐h mean, peak, or nadir, or the time of the nocturnal rise, in plasma cortisol in the 2 groups. Analyses of different subgroups of MDD adolescents according to suicidality, severity of depression, separation anxiety, psychotic subtype, endogenicity, duration of episode, and sex also revealed no significant group differences. Only one adolescent (with MDD) was identified clearly as a hypersecretor of cortisol. These results indicate that abnormalities of spontaneous cortisol secretion are an unusual finding among adolescents with major depression when studied in a nonstressful environment.


Psychiatry Research-neuroimaging | 1991

Electroencephalographic sleep measures in prepubertal depression

Ronald E. Dahl; Neal D. Ryan; Boris Birmaher; Mayadah Al-Shabbout; Douglas E. Williamson; Martin Neidig; Beverly Nelson; Joaquim Puig-Antich

Two nights of electroencephalographic (EEG) sleep recording were performed in a group of prepubertal subjects with major depressive disorder (MDD) (n = 36, mean age = 10.4, SD = 1.5) and age-matched normal control children (n = 18, mean age = 10.1, SD = 1.6). All subjects were medically healthy and free of medications at the time of the study. There were no significant group differences for any major sleep variable after the initial adaptation night in this study. One subgroup of MDD subjects (n = 8) showed reduced REM latency on both recording nights, decreased stage 4 sleep, and increased REM time; this subgroup had significantly higher severity scores for depression but did not otherwise appear to be clinically distinct from the rest of the MDD subjects. Overall, the results indicate that the EEG sleep changes associated with depression in adults occurred less frequently in prepubertal MDD subjects.


Biological Psychiatry | 1996

Corticotropin-releasing hormone challenge in prepubertal major depression

Boris Birmaher; Ronald E. Dahl; James M. Perel; Douglas E. Williamson; Beverly Nelson; Stacy Stull; Joan Kaufman; G. Scott Waterman; Uma Rao; Nga Nguyen; Puig-Antich Joaquim; Neal D. Ryan

This study investigates cortisol and ACTH (corticotropin) responses to an infusion of human CRH (corticotropin-releasing hormone) in prepubertal children with major depressive disorder (MDD). Following a period of 24 hours of adaptation to the laboratory environment with an intravenous catheter in place, 34 children with MDD and 22 healthy controls received 1 microgram/kg of human CRH at 5:00 PM. Blood samples for cortisol and ACTH were measured at baseline and post-CRH. Overall, there were no significant differences between the MDD and the normal controls in baseline or post CRH stimulation values of either cortisol or ACTH. Melancholic (n = 4) patients had significantly higher baseline cortisol levels than nonmelancholic (n = 24) patients. Compared with the outpatients and the nonmelancholics, the inpatients (n = 10) and the melancholics showed significantly lower total ACTH secretion (effect size: 0.9 and 1.4, respectively) after CRH infusion. These results are consistent with a broad literature suggesting that the HPA axis abnormalities occur less frequently in early-onset depression than reported in adult studies. The pattern of results in the subgroups of inpatients and in melancholic children, however, raise questions about possible continuities with adult studies.


Biological Psychiatry | 1992

The Dexamethasone Suppression Test in children and adolescents: A review and a controlled study

Ronald E. Dahl; Joan Kaufman; Neal D. Ryan; James M. Perel; Mayadah Al-Shabbout; Boris Birmaher; Beverly Nelson; Joaquim Puig-Antich

Dexamethasone Suppression Test (DST) studies conducted in children and adolescents are reviewed, together with factors hypothesized to explain discrepancies in rates of DST nonsuppression across studies. These factors are then examined in a controlled study of 27 adolescents with major depressive disorder (MDD) and 34 normal controls (NC). Subjects were given 1 mg of dexamethasone at 11:00 PM, and the following day serum samples for cortisol were collected each hr from 8 AM to 11 PM through an indwelling catheter. There were no significant differences found between the MDD and NC subjects on any postdexamethasone cortisol measure. Further, cortisol suppressors and nonsuppressors were not distinguished by any of the hypothesized factors identified from the review, including inpatient status, presence of suicidality, endogenous features, psychotic symptoms, or prior history of MDD. Questions about the appropriateness of the 1 mg dose of dexamethasone (currently the standard dose used with adolescents) are raised, together with a discussion of the effects of stress on DST findings.


Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry | 1994

Stimulatory tests of growth hormone secretion in prepubertal major depression: depressed versus normal children.

Neal D. Ryan; Ronald E. Dahl; Boris Birmaher; Douglas E. Williamson; Satish Iyengar; Beverly Nelson; Joaquim Puig-Antich; James M. Perel

OBJECTIVE Blunted stimulation of growth hormone (GH) secretion after pharmacological stimuli has been linked to depressive and anxiety disorders throughout the life span. This study sought to better characterize this dysregulation in prepubertal depression. METHOD GH regulation was compared in 38 medically healthy prepubertal children with current major depressive disorder and 19 control children who were medically and psychiatrically healthy. The study evaluated GH stimulatory responses to three pharmacological challenge agents: (1) insulin-induced hypoglycemia, using 0.1 IU/kg intravenous regular insulin; (2) 1.3 micrograms/kg intravenous clonidine; and (3) 1.0 microgram/kg intravenous human growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH). RESULTS The results provide replication and extension of earlier findings. GH responses to insulin-induced hypoglycemia and to GHRH stimulation were blunted in depressed children compared to the normal controls. Clonidine stimulation results yielded a similar picture but did not reach statistical significance. CONCLUSIONS Overall these results further strengthen the evidence showing GH dysregulation in childhood depression. However, the blunted GH response seen with GHRH (which reflects pituitary hyporesponsivity) was in contrast to our original hypothesis and has implications regarding the site (or sites) of dysregulation.

Collaboration


Dive into the Beverly Nelson's collaboration.

Top Co-Authors

Avatar
Top Co-Authors

Avatar
Top Co-Authors

Avatar
Top Co-Authors

Avatar

Boris Birmaher

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

View shared research outputs
Top Co-Authors

Avatar
Top Co-Authors

Avatar

James M. Perel

University of Pittsburgh

View shared research outputs
Top Co-Authors

Avatar
Top Co-Authors

Avatar

Joan Kaufman

University of Pittsburgh

View shared research outputs
Top Co-Authors

Avatar
Top Co-Authors

Avatar
Researchain Logo
Decentralizing Knowledge