Neuropsychiatric Diseases in Children and Nutrition

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue will focus on the new advances and future challenges of dietary therapies for childhood-onset neuropsychiatric disorders.

Neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders are often characterized by a multifactorial etiology that contributes to the complexity of clinical manifestation, which are presented as an overlap of neurological and psychiatric symptoms. While traditional drug therapies are frequently effective, a personalized nutritional approach and dietary therapies might strengthen or replace traditional drug treatments in refractory cases. Moreover, both patients and their families and clinicians are now searching for new and individualized treatments.

Ketogenic dietary treatments have been effectively used in some cases of drug-resistant epilepsies and in chronic metabolic diseases, in addition to being assessed in a variety of other neurological conditions in both animal models and human trials. A ketogenic diet (KD) has been demonstrated to result in an improvement of both cognitive and motor functioning in animal models in the study of brain injury as well as in animal models of multiple sclerosis, showing an effect on memory impairment and inflammation. Comorbidities and overlapping manifestations between epilepsy and other neuropsychiatric disorders might suggest some common underlying physiopathological features and thus imply the application of ketogenic dietary therapies.

However, the specific KD mechanism of action in neurological and psychiatric diseases is still poorly understood, therefore representing a stimulating and challenging research field.

The aim of this Special Issue is to outline the potential role of dietary therapies in child neuropsychiatric disorders other than seizure control, and even in terms of cognitive and behavioral improvement. The focus will be placed on the role of the ketogenic diet and nutritional therapeutic functions on both neurological (e.g., developing brain, epilepsy of different etiologies, headache, brain tumors) and psychiatric (e.g., ADHD and autism) diseases.

Addressing the link between brain function and nutrition would allow for a better definition of the pathological mechanism and specific therapeutic target for use in clinical practice.

Dr. Pierangelo Veggiotti
Dr. Ludovica Pasca
Guest Editors

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