Developmental Trajectories and Autism Risk in NICU Graduates: A Longitudinal Study of Brain and Behavior

项目摘要 候选人：此应用程序是一个K23职业发展奖妮可麦当劳，博士，一个F32 洛杉矶加州大学博士后研究员（通过奖励转为助理教授 开始日期）。麦克唐纳博士的职业目标是成为一名独立的非典型社会研究者。 这是一项旨在为识别和治疗高危婴儿提供信息的工作。K23奖将提供博士。 麦当劳与必要的培训和指导经验，以获得专业知识：1）先进的 测量婴儿大脑的发育神经科学和电生理学（EEG）方法 早期医疗风险对新生儿脑发育和社会行为的影响 重症监护病房（NICU）毕业生; 3）建模纵向数据的统计方法。工作环境： 导师将由脑电图专家Shafali Jeste、Isabell Purdy和Damla Senturk博士提供 神经发育障碍的方法和大脑发育，高风险NICU毕业生， 复杂生物医学数据的模型。研究和职业发展：从第一天开始 大脑的发育是在婴儿和看护者之间的日常互动中发生的。 婴儿大脑功能的差异可能在早期社会交往中断之前和之后， 增加了不利社会后果的风险，同时也提供了干预和改善的机会。 发展需要延长新生儿重症监护室（NICU）住院的婴儿携带 多种相互作用的风险因素，增加了社会缺陷的可能性，包括生物， 环境和社会经济风险。这项研究将建立在文献上的婴儿有家庭风险， 自闭症（即，自闭症儿童的弟弟妹妹），这已经确定了社会上越来越大的分歧， 沟通行为和大脑发育之间的6和12个月的年龄。通过协同 加州大学洛杉矶分校高风险婴儿随访诊所和自闭症研究和治疗中心之间， 这项研究将检查高危儿童6至12个月的社会行为和大脑发育轨迹。 NICU毕业生，有自闭症家族风险的婴儿和低风险对照。有效的社会措施 行为和脑电图，一种测量大脑功能和连接的可访问和可扩展的方法， 婴儿期，将被用来比较发展轨迹，并检查是否早期差异 预测24个月时社会功能和发育的变化。我们的最终目标是应用 确定了行为和大脑标记，以进行针对性的干预研究， 高风险NICU毕业生的发展。这些目标直接涉及NICHD研究的优先事项; 特别是，“关于智力和发育残疾的生物标志物和结果测量的研究”， 症状，严重程度评估和治疗，特别是针对认知，行为， 社会和医疗问题”

Project Summary Candidate: This application is for a K23 career development award for Nicole McDonald, PhD, an F32 postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles (transitioning to assistant professor by award start date). Dr. McDonald’s career goal is to become an independent investigator of atypical social development in order to inform efforts to identify and treat at-risk infants. This K23 award will provide Dr. McDonald with the necessary training and mentored experience to gain expertise in: 1) advanced developmental neuroscience and electrophysiological (EEG) methods of measuring infant brain development; 2) the effects of early medical risk on brain development and social behavior in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) graduates; 3) statistical methods for modeling longitudinal data. Environment: Mentorship will be provided by Drs. Shafali Jeste, Isabell Purdy, and Damla Senturk, experts in EEG methods and brain development in neurodevelopmental disorders, high-risk NICU graduates, and statistical models for complex biomedical data, respectively. Research and Career Development: From the first days of life, brain development occurs in the context of everyday interactions between infants and caregivers. Differences in infant brain function may both precede and follow disruptions in early social interactions, precipitating risk for adverse social outcomes while also offering an opportunity to intervene and improve development. Infants who require extended Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) hospitalizations carry multiple interacting risk factors that increase the likelihood of social deficits, including biological, environmental, and socioeconomic risks. This study will build on the literature on infants with familial risk for autism (i.e., younger siblings of children with autism), which has identified a growing divergence in social communication behavior and brain development between 6 and 12 months of age. Through a collaboration between the UCLA High Risk Infant Follow-Up Clinic and Center for Autism Research and Treatment, this study will examine trajectories of social behavior and brain development from 6 to 12 months in high-risk NICU graduates, infants with familial risk for autism, and low-risk controls. Well-validated measures of social behavior and EEG, an accessible and scalable method of measuring brain function and connectivity during infancy, will be utilized to compare developmental trajectories and examine whether early differences predict variation in social functioning and development at 24 months. It is our eventual goal to apply the identified behavioral and brain markers to a targeted study of an intervention designed to optimize social development in high-risk NICU graduates. These aims directly address NICHD research priorities; in particular, “research on biomarkers and outcome measures for intellectual and developmental disability symptoms, severity assessments, and treatments, especially outcomes targeting cognitive, behavioral, social, and medical issues.”