Around one in five children with Tourette syndrome, a neurological disorder characterized by involuntary movements and vocalizations, met criteria for autism in a study headed by UC San Francisco. But this prevalence may be more a reflection of similarity in symptoms than actual autism, according to the study’s researchers.

The 170th Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) will be held Saturday, May 20-Wednesday, May 24, 2017, at the San Diego Convention Center.

The UC Board of Regents will consider approving UC San Francisco’s new Child, Teen and Family Center during its meetings at UCSF Mission Bay this week.

A consortium of top researchers — led by scientists at UC San Francisco, Rutgers University, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Florida, and Yale School of Medicine — has made a significant advance, identifying the first “high-confidence” risk gene for Tourette disorder as well as three other probable risk genes.

Studying brain disorders is complicated for many reasons, not the least being the ethics of obtaining living neurons. To overcome that obstacle, UCSF postdoc Aditi Deshpande, PhD, is starting with skin cells.

Distinct sets of genetic defects in a single neuronal protein can lead either to infantile epilepsy or to autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), according to a new study.

The UCSF Depression Center welcomed UCLA Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences Jonathan Flint, MD, to campus on December 13 & 14, 2016, for a pair of lectures covering genetic research on personality and depression.

The UCSF Depression Center will host a free evening seminar on December 14, for patients, family members, clinicians, and other community members interested in learning more about how mental health professionals are using genetics to understand who we are.

The University of California, San Francisco Department of Psychiatry, along with the San Francisco chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), will host a morning of reflection, discussion, and support on Saturday, November 19, 2016, for International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day.

The 63rd Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) will be held Monday, October 24 – Saturday, October 29, 2016 in New York, and numerous current and former UCSF Psychiatry faculty members and trainees will be in attendance.