Daniel Geller, M.D.

Founder and Director of Research, Pediatric Psychiatry OCD and Tic Disorders Program

Daniel Geller MBBS FRACP is the Founder and Director of Research at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Pediatric Psychiatry Obsessive-Compulsive and Tic Disorder (OCD/Tic) Clinical and Research Program. His research career has been devoted to the study of pediatric OCD and related disorders, their phenotypes, clinical correlates, familial patterns of inheritance, and treatment. He authored the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Practice Parameters for the Assessment and Treatment of OCD in Children and Adolescents which documents the standard of care for management of early onset OCD in the USA. He received a NIMH career development award to conduct a family genetic study of pediatric OCD and subsequently assembled one of the largest cohorts of subjects ever studied, recruiting over 500 participants and publishing extensively on the findings. Early in the history of Pediatric Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococcus (PANDAS), he was an investigator in the NIH-funded Tourette Syndrome Study group, a 2-year prospective controlled study of youth with PANDAS. He has been a site investigator for numerous industry and investigator-initiated drug trials since 1991 for pediatric OCD, Tourette’s syndrome, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), anxiety and depression, including nearly all of the original pharmacotherapy registration trials for pediatric OCD. Dr. Geller has also been principal investigator or co-investigator in a number of NIH-funded grants, including the OCD Collaborative Genetics study. He is a triple board-certified pediatrician, psychiatrist and child psychiatrist, a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Fellow of both the American and European College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and an executive board member of the International College of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders. Since 2013, he has held the Mittelman Family Chair in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at MGH.  He has been voted a Best of Boston child psychiatrist every year since 2012.

 Publications by Dr. Geller

  1. Geller DA, Biederman J, Griffin S, Jones J, Lefkowitz T.  Comorbidity of juvenile Obsessive Compulsive Disorder with disruptive behavior disorders. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 1996;35:1637-1646. PubMed PMID: 8973071. doi: 10.1097/00004583-199612000-00016.
  2. Geller D, Biederman J, Faraone SV, Frazier J, Coffey B, Kim G, Bellordre CA. Clinical correlates of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in children and adolescents referred to specialized and non-specialized clinical settings. Depress Anxiety. 2000;11:163-168. PubMed PMID: 10945136. doi: 10.1002/1520-6394(2000)11:4<163:AID-DA3>3.0.CO;2-3.
  3. Geller DA, Biederman J, Faraone S, Agranat A, Cradock K, Hagermoser L, Kim G, Frazier J, Coffey BJ. Developmental aspects of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: Findings in children, adolescents, and adults. J Nerv Ment Dis. 2001;189:471-477. PubMed PMID: 11504325. doi: 0022-3018/01/1897-471.
  4. Geller DA, Hoog SL, Heiligentstein JH, Ricardi RK, Tamura R, Kluszynski S, Jacobson JG, Fluoxetine Pediatric OCD Research Team. Fluoxetine treatment for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in children and adolescents: A placebo-controlled clinical trial. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2001;40:773-779. PubMed PMID: 11437015. doi: 10.1097/00004583-200107000-00011.
  5. Geller DA, Biederman J, Faraone SV, Cradock K, Hagermoser L, Zaman N, Frazier JA, Coffey BJ, Spencer TJ. Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in children and adolescents with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: Fact or artifact? J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2002;41:52-58. PubMed PMID: 11800207. doi: 10.1097/00004583-200201000-00011.
  6. Geller DA, Biederman J, Stewart SE, Mullin B, Martin A, Spencer T, Faraone SV.  Which SSRI? A meta-analysis of pharmacotherapy trials in pediatric Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Am J Psychiatry. 2003;160:1919-1928. PubMed PMID: 14594734. doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.160.11.1919
  7. Geller DA, Wagner KD, Emslie G, Murphy T, Carpenter DJ, Wetherhold E, Perera P, Machin A, Gardiner C. Paroxetine treatment in children and adolescents with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A randomized, multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2004;43:1387-1396. PubMed PMID: 15502598. doi:.10.1097/01.chi.0000138356.29099.f1.
  8. Geller D, Petty C, Vivas F, Johnson J, Pauls D, Biederman J. Further evidence for co-segregation between pediatric Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder: A familial risk analysis. Biol Psychiatry. 2007;61:1388-1394. PubMed PMID: 17241617. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2006.09.026.
  9. Geller D, Donnelly C, Lopez F, Rubin R, Newcorn J, Sutton V, Bakken R, Paczkowski M, Kelsey D, Sumner C. Atomoxetine treatment for pediatric patients with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder with comorbid Anxiety Disorder. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2007;46:1119-1127. PubMed PMID: 17712235. doi: 10.1097/chi.0b013e3180ca8385.
  10. Geller DA, Wieland N, Carey K, Vivas F, Petty CR, Johnson J, Reichert E, Pauls D, Biederman J. Perinatal factors affecting expression of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in children and adolescents. J Child Adolesc Psychopharmacol. 2008;18:373-379. PubMed PMID: 18759647. PMCID: PMC2935829. doi: 10.1089/cap.2007.0112.
  11. Geller DA, Abramovitch A, Mittelman A, Stark A, Ramsey K, Cooperman A, Baer L, Stewart SE. Neurocognitive function in pediatric Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. World J Biol Psychiatry 2017; 16:1-26. PubMed PMID: 28090807. PMCID: PMC5555842. doi: 10.1080/15622975.2017.1282173.
  12. Geller DA, McGuire JF, Orr SP, Small BJ, Murphy TK, Trainor K, Porth R, Wilhelm S, and Storch EA. Fear extinction learning as a predictor of response to cognitive behavioral therapy for pediatric Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. J Anxiety Disord 2019; 64:1-8. PubMed PMID: 30852257. NIHMSID:NIHMS1612173. doi: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2019.02.005.

 

Additional publications by Dr. Geller