Dear readers, welcome to the “MiND the gap” blog! The blog will report about research highlights in the fields of developmental psychiatry – mainly ADHD, autism, conduct disorder and aggression, but also mood disorders. Both clinical as well as basic science studies will be featured and discussed, and our aim is to keep you updated about important new leads in the field.
The idea to publish this blog came during one of the dozens of phone conferences held every month. I am myself member of three EU funded consortia (MiND, Aggressotype and CoCA, the latter of which I coordinate), and a requirement for each of it is dissemination of findings and societal impact. However, it seems a bit stupid that all of these projects (which are highly interacting) have their own little activity. Rather we should join forces – also with other initiative from our network, such as IMpACT, the ECNP Network ADHD across the Lifespan and the German Centre of Developmental Psychiatry – and combine efforts. Around 100 researchers, from young early stage researchers trying to obtain their Ph.D. up to PIs who are amongst the most highly cited researchers in psychiatry. So what if every researcher from these consortia would write a mere five posts per year? We would have more than 500 blog posts a year! From the most active people working in the field! Well, this sounded attractive and hence we decided to move forward. The name of the blog was chosen as it refers to one of the consortia, and it addresses the core thing that we study – but also hints to the fact there are still many unknown issues in mental disorders.
We hope that you enjoy following and reading our blog, and that you find something interesting, stimulating or even entertaining every day. Please provide feedback, get in touch and contribute!
Photo above: group photo from the MiND kickoff meeting in Barcelona, 2015
Mind the Gap Blog