Research

The Center for Neurological and Neurodevelopmental Health and our sister organization, The Clinical Research Center of New Jersey, are engaged in an array of research projects that provide our patients with access to cutting edge therapies and treatments. Our professionals are also engaged in investigating important aspects of neurological diagnosis and therapeutics, and contributing to the medical and psychological literature.

Our group has recently completed a landmark study in discovering that some children with learning and attention problems might actually have an underlying electrical disturbance of the brain that is treatable. We found that some children with “subclinical spikes” (i.e. abnormal and very brief [only 1/5 of a second] electrical discharges from the surface of the brain, but without any observable clinical manifestations of seizure-like activity) had deficiencies of “Working Memory” (analogous to the RAM of a computer, and necessary for learning) that improved after administration of a well tolerated anti-seizure medication. This research finding adds to the growing body of literature and understanding that behaviorally defined disorders like “ADHD” often have a diverse array of biological or neurological mechanisms, and thus, the treatments for such subgroups might be very different than what is generally prescribed. This research provides further evidence that people withneurobehavioral disorders (often labeled as ADHD, Learning Disabilities, etc) require comprehensive evaluations to determine if underlying biological mechanisms can be identified.

This PDF file has the complete presentation made recently at the Annual Meeting of the American Epilepsy Society, San Diego, California, December, 2006.

Dr. Mintz has recently co-authored a chapter with Michael Allesandri, Ph.D. and Paolo Curatolo, M.D. on the topic Treatment Approaches for Autistic Spectrum Disorders, part of a book edited by Roberto Tuchman, M.D. and Isabelle Rapin, M.D. and entitled Autism: A Neurological Disorder of Early Brain Development, International Child Neurology Association, Mac Keith Press, London 2006. This PDF file has the complete text of the chapter; you can also visit http://www.mackeith.co.uk/icna.html for information about purchasing the entire book.