The Origins of Preadolescent Risk for Psychiatric Disorders in Early Childhood Brain Development

摘要 多年来，人们一直假设大多数精神疾病是由于不正常的 早期儿童大脑发育的轨迹，NIMH的一个主要优先事项是更好地 了解精神疾病的风险如何在儿童期展开，以告知早期干预 预防或减轻风险和疾病严重程度的战略。大脑的早期发育 研究是一项纵向研究，对产前登记的儿童进行了随访， 出生时和1岁、2岁、4岁和6岁时的发育评估。本队列的儿童 现在已经到了青春期前，在这一时期， 与精神疾病相关的，包括执行功能，注意力和焦虑， 正在浮现目前对大脑结构和大脑活动之间的关系知之甚少。 发展和风险表型在青春期前;这是一个重大的差距，我们的 知识和学习的迫切需要。 我们建议在我们的纵向队列中跟踪446名8岁和10岁的儿童。 将进行MRI，包括结构、弥散张量和静息状态功能成像。 将评估认知发展和行为发展，重点是 执行功能，注意力和焦虑的表型，与RDoC结构一致， 对精神疾病风险很重要。在这项研究中获得的知识将提高我们的基本 对人类童年时期大脑发育的了解，使我们能够描绘出童年 儿童晚期风险表型的预测因子，并最终帮助儿童期的目标期 发展早期干预。 相关性 这项研究中获得的新知识将为以下方面提供一个大大改进的框架： 了解儿童大脑发育及其与认知和行为的关系 儿童后期的结果，以及随后精神疾病的风险。

Abstract It has been hypothesized for years that most psychiatric disorders are the result of abnormal trajectories of early childhood brain development and a major priority for NIMH is to better understand how risk for psychiatric disorders unfold in childhood, to inform early intervention strategies that prevent or mitigate risk and illness severity. The UNC Early Brain Development Study is a longitudinal study that has followed children, enrolled prenatally, with imaging and developmental assessments at birth and at ages 1, 2 4, and 6 years. Children from this cohort are now reaching pre-adolescence, a period in which cognitive and behavioral abnormalities associated with psychiatric disease, including executive function, attention, and anxiety, are emerging. Very little is currently known about the relationship between brain structure and development and risk phenotypes in pre-adolescence; this represents is a major gap in our knowledge and a critical need for study. We propose to follow 446 children in our longitudinal cohort at ages 8 and 10 years of age. MRIs, including structural, diffusion tensor, and resting state functional imaging, will be performed. Cognitive development and behavioral development will be assessed, with a focus on the phenotypes of executive function, attention, and anxiety, consistent with RDoC constructs and important for psychiatric disorder risk. Knowledge gained in this study will improve our basic understanding of human brain development in childhood, allow us to delineate childhood predictors of risk phenotypes in late childhood, and ultimately help target periods of childhood development for early intervention. Relevance New knowledge gained in this study will provide a dramatically improved framework for understanding childhood brain development and its relationship to cognitive and behavioral outcomes in late childhood, and to risk for subsequent psychiatric disorders.