Infant Regulatory Problems and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Behaviour and Cognitive Problems in Childhood and Young Adulthood

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The aim of this project is to evaluate whether infant regulatory problems (RP) are the starting point of a trajectory of dysregulation in several functional domains ranging from attention to behaviour and cognitive problems towards a mature phenotype in young adulthood. This will be investigated by utilizing and extending data collection within an on-going epidemiological study from birth to adulthood, the Bavarian Longitudinal Study (BLS, BESt). RP were assessed during infancy and preschool age. Behaviour, attention, and cognitive problems and the occurrence of an attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were or are assessed at transition to school age (at 6.3 and 8.5 years) and in young adulthood (at 25 to 28 years of age). The study will test three alternative models of how multiple and/or persistent RP and environmental conditions affect behaviour, attention, and cognitive problems and the occurrence of ADHD at school and adult age: the main effect model, the Diathesis Stress Model, and the Differential Susceptibility Theory. Furthermore, we aim to identify neural pathways, which may mediate RP to dysregulation deficits, by the use of structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (s/fMRI). More specifically, due to intimate overlap with regulation problems in ADHD, we expect for RP similarly aberrant intrinsic brain network interactions, which are centred on the default mode network and may underlie attentional lapses and related dysregulation. The previous data collection was funded by the BMBF (grant PKE 4 and JUG 14), and current data collection for a subgroup of biological at risk children is funded by the BMBF (grant 01 ER 0801). We are asking here for funding for assessing all subjects with former RP and controls without RP in adulthood including brain imaging and for conducting the data analysis. Moreover, we are in the unique position to cross validate our findings concerning ADHD and cognitive and behaviour problems using the Finnish Arvo Ylppö Longitudinal Study (AYLS), a sister study of the BLS, which employed identical assessments in childhood and similar outcome assessments in adulthood. This synergistically highly cost-effective project will make a unique contribution to the identification of early risk factors or markers of behaviour and cognitive problems and ADHD in childhood and early adulthood. The findings are likely to have important implications for prevention strategies, early intervention offers and costs of the health care system.