Current Studies
Active Studies
Child OCD Study
This research study will examine how an iPad-based cognitive training game combined with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) helps children with excessive worries and related repetitive behaviors (“obsessive compulsive disorder”). Children ages 8-12 may be eligible to participate.
Who Can Participate?
- Age (years) is between 8 and 12
- Bothered by worries, fears, obsessions, or compulsions (rituals)
- Interference from worries or fears (e.g., school attendance or performance, relationships with family members or peers, involvement in activities)
- Note: No previous formal diagnosis required
What is Involved?
- Eligible children will complete a clinical evaluation, questionnaires, 2 MRI scans, and cognitive training games at home on an iPad loaned to you.
Compensation
- Your child can receive compensation of up to $400 in the form of gift cards for participating in this study. After completing the study, all children will be offered CBT delivered by experts at no cost.
Contact Information
Studies No Longer Recruiting
OCS (Task Control Circuit Targets for Obsessive Compulsive Behaviors in Children)
Principal Investigators:
- Rachel Marsh, PhD
- Kate Fitzgerald, MD.
Summary
This research study examines brain functioning in children with and without OCD. For children with OCD, this study includes a thorough diagnostic evaluation, a full course of CBT (12 sessions), and an MRI scan before and after treatment. For children without OCD, this study includes a thorough diagnostic evaluation and 1-2 MRI scans. All study procedures, including the evaluation, treatment, and MRI scans are at no cost. In addition, your child will receive compensation up to $300 in the form of a gift card for participating in this study.
Contact Information
For more information please contact:
Diana More
dm3925@cumc.columbia.edu
INHIBITORY CONTROL (Intergenerational Transmission of Deficits in Self-Regulatory Control)
Principal Investigators:
- Marisa Spann, PhD
- Rachel Marsh, PhD
- Catherine Monk, PhD.
SummarySelf-regulatory deficits are common across a variety of childhood psychiatric disorders in which children have difficulty regulating their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. By leveraging previously collected prenatal and neonatal data and acquiring new data from mother-infant dyads, this study will identify brain-based markers of regulatory deficits that are passed inter-generationally and persist from infancy to childhood. This study includes pregnant woman and mothers between the ages of 14 and 45 years old. The children enrolled in this study will be given age-appropriate measures of regulatory control processes at 4 months, 14 months and again during preschool and school age. MRI data will be collected from neonates and school age children who were previously scanned as neonates. These measures will also be collected from the mothers, allowing us to associate maternal neonatal indices of self-regulatory control. Thus, this study will uncover trajectories of control processes and circuits from infancy to school age and the intergenerational transmission of regulatory deficits from mothers to children.
Contact Information
For more information please contact:
Diana More
dm3925@cumc.columbia.edu
COMBO (The COVID-19 Mother-Baby Outcomes Study)
Principal Investigators:
- Rachel Marsh, PhD
- Catherine Monk, PhD
- Dani Dumitriu, MD
Summary
The COMBO study was initiated to explore the hypothesis that prenatal SARS-CoV-2 exposure affects mother and child brain and behavior and demonstrates that the socioemotional health of each member of the mother-child dyad is intrinsically related to that of the other. The CDNL lab has acquired multimodal MRI data from mothers and their newborn infants who are currently being followed longitudinally. Detecting COVID-19-related mother-child neurobehavioral effects will provide insights into interventions for and contribute significantly to children’s developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) and stress science. Further, this dyadic sample can be used to assess the intergenerational transmission of traits and psychological symptoms.
Contact Information
For more information please see the COVID-19 Mother Baby Outcomes Study and/or contact:
Grace Smotrich
gcs2143@cumc.columbia.edu
NOSI Maternal Health
Principal Investigators:
- Rachel Marsh, PhD
- Catherine Monk, PhD
- Dani Dumitriu, MD
Summary
This project explores structural racism and discrimination, economic marginalization, and other social determinants of health as drivers of maternal mental health inequities. Our team at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) has pioneered a large multidisciplinary consortium, the COVID-19 Mother Baby Outcomes (COMBO) Initiative, to address the impacts of COVID-19 on mother-infant dyads in an understudied population (predominantly Latinx of low socioeconomic status [SES]).
Contact Information
For more information please contact:
Diana More
dm3925@cumc.columbia.edu