Baby teeth could one day lead to the development of a much-needed tool for identifying children who are at risk for psychological problems, a study by the
University of Bristol has concluded.
The research has been published in the 'JAMA Network Open' - a monthly journal published by the American Medical Association.
The origin of this study traces back several years, when senior author Erin Dunn - a social and psychiatric epidemiologist and an investigator in MGH's Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit - learned about work in the field of anthropology that could help solve a longstanding problem in her own research.
She studies the effects of childhood adversity, which research suggested, is responsible for up to one-third of all mental health disorders.
Dunn is particularly interested in the timing of these adverse events and in uncovering whether there are sensitive periods during child development when exposure to adversity is particularly harmful.
Yes, you have read it right. It may not be a bad behavior of children, but it can be a mental illness. Hence, spotting various signs of mental illness among children has become an essential task for parents.