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Based on the analysis of current literature, the authors reviewed diagnostic aspects and the relationship between tension-type headache (TH) and mental disorders in 78 children, aged from 7 to 15 years, admitted to a neurological unit in 2004-2007 and in 45 children admitted to a psychiatric hospital. The latter group included 22 patients with depressive episodes, 11 with anxiety-phobic disorder and 12 with schizotypal personality disorder. The comparison of clinical features of headache in these groups revealed that TH was associated with mental disorders and chronic TH in most cases was a symptom of a mental disease (primarily depression). The authors stress the importance of the interdisciplinary approach to investigation, diagnosis and treatment of chronic headache in children.

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An objective of the study was to search for new biologically significant markers of brain damage. Levels of blood serum autoantibodies (aAB) to different fragments of α7-subunit of acetylcholine receptor (ACR) were studied in children with traumatic brain injury of different severity. The more severe was trauma, the higher was the level of aAB to fragments of α7-subunit of ACR in the first week after trauma. The data obtained suggest that α7-subunits of ACR and aAB to them are involved in the pathogenesis of traumatic brain lesions and, probably, play a significant role in the course of post traumatic period.

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Autoantibodies (AB) to glutamate receptors of AMPA (Glur1) and NMDA (NR2A) types and nitric oxide metabolites, nitrates and nitrites (NOx), were studied in the blood serum of children with brain trauma of different severity. The level of both AB types increased from the 1st to the 10th day after trauma. The level of NMDA (NR2A) AB was higher comparing to AMPA (Glur1). Patients with mild brain trauma, scoring 14-15 on the Coma Glasgow Scale, had the highest AB concentration while patients with severe brain trauma (scores <9), had the lower level of NMDA (NR2A) AB. The lowest level of AB and the highest level of NOx in the blood serum were found in a group of children with the fatal outcome of severe brain trauma. The many-fold increase of NOx concentration in this group points to marked hypoxia after severe brain trauma.

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Using transcranial Doppler ultrasonography, cerebral hemodynamics has been studied in 140 children, aged 6-16 years, with different types of headache in the interictal period. According to a type of headache the patients have been divided into groups as follows: migraine, headache of tension and unspecified headache with arterial hypotension, arterial hypertension and normal blood pressure. The predominance of different changes of cerebral hemodynamics was found in patients compared to the control group. These changes were heterogeneous within the type of headache. All types of headache, with exception of headache with arterial hypertension, were characterized by low vascular tone of the cerebral arteries and increased bloodstream velocity. A high percent of cerebral venous defects was observed in all the groups. These disturbances should be taken into account in prescription of vasoactive drugs to children with headache.

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Autoantibodies (aAB) to AMPA (Glu R1 subunit) and NMDA (NR 2A subunit) glutamate receptors were studied in blood serum of 60 children, aged 7-16 years, with chronic posttraumatic headache after mild skull injury. All the children were divided into 2 groups: group 1 included 48 children with concussion of the brain, group 2--12 children with brain contusion. Group 1 was divided into 2 subgroups: subgroup 1a comprised 34 children with single concussion and subgroup 1b--14 children with repeated concussion. The aAB level was determined 6 months and 1 year after skull injury. The aAB concentration was expressed in percents to the control level being considered significant if the increase was higher than 120%. The increased NMDA aAB level was observed during the first year after skull injury. In the la subgroup, the NR2 aAB level in blood serum was 145 +/- 12,6%, in the 1b one--108 +/- 12,4%, in group 2--165 +/- 34%. The content of aAB to AMPA receptors was elevated only in children of lb subgroup and group 2 (150 +/- 16,8% and 167 +/- 31,3%, respectively). The EEG examination of this group revealed the nonspecific paroxysmal discharges in 18% of cases and epileptiform activity in 6% of children. The results obtained suggest that children with posttraumatic headache have elevated levels of aAB to glutamate receptors, hyperstimulation of which reflects hypoxic processes in the brain, and are in need of metabolic therapy.

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The instrumental methods of evaluation of the cognitive ability of child by means of test computer systems open up real opportunities for the objective and thorough examination of main processes of the cognitive ability. An objective quantitation of the cognitive sphere makes it possible to prognosticate the intellectual development of child and to use such methods not only in the diagnosis and prevention but also in the correction of cognitive disorders.

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Techniques for investigation of a functional condition of autonomic nervous system in young children--anamnesis questionnaire, a list of basic vegetative disorders and screening table for vegetative tonus evaluation--were elaborated. These tools have been tested in a longitudinal study of more than 200 children, aged 3 months to 5 years, with various psychic disorders, 143 being related to high-risk group for schizophrenia, and were proved to be higher informative, simpler and more convenient for practitioners.

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The level of autoantibodies (AAb) to nerve growth factor was evaluated in blood serum of 163 children with different forms of mental dysontogenesis of endogenic, residual-organic, psychogenic and deprivative origin. Significant elevation of the level of AAb was found in all forms of psychic dysontogenesis. The most significant elevation of the level of AAb (p < 0.01), as compared with the controls (45 children), was characteristic for endogenic forms of dysontogenesis (schizophrenia, early children's autism, schizotypic diathesis). The level of AAb was also found as an indicator of the acuteness of the pathologic state. Besides, its elevation was observed 1-2 weeks prior to the onset of the clinical exacerbation. Elevation of AAb level was also found in psychic dysontogenesis of residual-organic nature (children with perinatal encephalopathy), but it was not so significant as compared with the controls (p < 0.05%). The analysis in the age dynamics of children from this group revealed, that AAb level may serve as some prognostic index of the severity of psychic dysontogenesis. The level of AAb differs some states in schizotypic diathesis and deprivative dysontogenesis, which are clinically quite similar. The method for the estimation of serum AAb level may be proposed as screening in prophylactic medical examination of children from the first year of life under conditions of pediatric outpatient service for identification of risk-groups by psychic dysontogenesis to perform early special psychoprophylaxis.

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80 children aged 1-3 years were examined. They were divided into 3 groups by the degree and structure of disorders of mental development: children with predominant delay of speech development (group 1); with a delay of psychic development due to organic damage of CNS (group 2); with deviation of psychic development and the most pronounced psychopathologic symptomatology (group 3). There was a significant (p < 0.001) elevation in the blood level of autoantibodies to nerve growth factor (NGF) in children from all groups as compared with control one (0.75 +/- 0.24 OD units). The level of such autoantibodies also increased during transition from the 1st to the 3d group (0.95 +/- 0.24 in group 1; 1.13 +/- 0.27 in group 2; 1.24 +/- 0.4 in group 3). The correlations allow us to suppose that the level of autoantibodies to NGF might be considered, together with some other signs, as a potential molecular marker indicating a disorder in the development of nervous system.

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Electroencephalographic study was performed in 30 children of 1-3 years old from the group with the high risk of schizophrenia. Clinical observation of the patients was performed in the period of EEG recording and follow-up study was also made during 10-12 years. Three groups of patients were picked out with the differences in both clinical and electrophysiologic indices. Bundle beta-activity was registered on EEG in the cases of an active schizophrenic process. A presence of the spindles of the sleep and their dominance on EEG were characteristic for children with nonprocessual disorders of psychopathic-like type with disinhibition of the drives. Hypersynchronism of delta- and theta-activities were observed in the cases of schizotypic diathesis and an early children's autism with the predominance of paroxysmal somato-autonomic disorders.

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A level of autoantibodies (aAB) to nerve growth factor (NGF) was measured in blood serum of children from 4 groups: 1) schizophrenic patients; 2) children from the families, in which one of the parents suffered with schizophrenia (high risk groups of schizophrenia); 3) children with residual-organic damages of CNS; 4) control group. This index was also determined in their mothers. Significant elevation of a titer of aAB to NGF was observed in blood of children from groups 1 and 2 as well as in their mothers, as compared with 3 and 4 groups. Among the mothers of the children from 1 and 2 groups there were met women with different endogenous mental disorders, with the disorders of personality as well as mentally healthy women. An increase of a level of aAB to NGF was found in all the women from groups 1 and 2, independently of their mental status including mentally healthy women. Such results allow to consider elevated level of aAB to NGF as a risk factor of mental pathology.

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GNOM--is standard method of estimation of health state in babies and infants with determination of coefficient of mental development. Method's basis appears to be tasks and tests allowing to evaluate (in scores) the state of the main neuropsychiatric spheres, namely: sensory, motor, emotional, cognitive and social-communicative. Method exists both in ordinary and computer variations. It was approved in process of observation of 500 children. GNOM permits to perform the screening of children in big children's contingents. It may be used by either the physicians or other medical personnel as well as by the parents too.

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Computed tomography (CT) was performed in 189 individuals: in 44 children of schizophrenic parents (high risk group, HRG), in 39 parents with schizophrenia or with schizophrenic disturbance, in 56 children with schizophrenia, in 50 children with consequences of early organic damages of central nervous system (mental retardation syndrome and generalized tic syndrome). The frequency of CT changes was equal in the mentioned groups but their character was quite different. The widening of brain's liquor system (89.7%), the signs of frontal and temporal atrophia (31%), foci of decreased density of cerebral brain's matter, closer in subcortical ganglia and periventricular zone, and different anomalies of brain were observed in HRG children.

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A 7-year study of locomotor function in 103 children born in the families where one of the parents suffered from schizophrenia has found no locomotor abnormalities only in 20% cases. The rest of them had: disorders of the general locomotor activity, disorders of the static and locomotor development, symptoms of extrapyramidal and cerebral regulation dysfunctions, changes of the muscle tone, ataxia, pathologic locomotor phenomena, speech disorders. The severity of the above disturbances and their variability correlated with the child's general and mental development. Attempts of relevant locomotor correction including massage provided good results.

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The authors summarize the data obtained during a comprehensive examination of 200 children of the first year of life with borderline mental disorders. Abnormalities of vegetative and instinctive regulation, psychomotor and affective disorders which are, as a rule, of the borderline nature, occupy the leading position in the structure of the above-indicated disorders. The latter ones are associated frequently enough with different types of development retardation and neurological deviations from normal. The signs of differentiating between these disorders and analogous ones within the framework of endogenous mental pathology are depicted. The role is demonstrated of etiological factors (perinatal encephalopathy, constitutional, psychosocial, disturbances of the mother-child system). The studies attest to the basic demonstrability of psychopathological abnormalities and to their great diversity in infants.

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