Environmental Contributions to Disparities in Learning Disabilities: The Columbia Psychiatry, Psychology, and Public Health Collaborative Learning Disabilities Innovation Hub

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The Columbia Psychiatry, Psychology, and Public Health Collaborative Learning Disabilities (LD) Innovation Hub brings together experts from distinct fields–-LD and neuropsychology, child psychiatry, cognitive neuroscience, public health and environmental science–-to improve our etiologic understanding of environmentally-associated learning difficulties (LDiff), defined both dimensionally and categorically by performance in the lowest quartile on standardized measures of reading and math. Our study includes Black and Latinx children from economically disadvantaged families—populations at high risk for prenatal exposure to neurotoxic chemicals and learning problems, who have historically been excluded from research. The Hub will establish infrastructure to (a) foster innovative research into the complex etiology and neural underpinnings of environmentally-associated LDiff in the context of economic adversity, and (b) train future interdisciplinary LD scholars and leaders in cutting-edge neuroscience and to engage with the wider child educational system. The Hub will document how prenatal environmental chemical exposures contribute to the achievement gap in the United States. Long term, the Hub will help close the achievement gap by identifying behavioral and neural pathways from prenatal exposures to LDiff—pathways that may be amenable to change. The Embedded Research Project will identify neural and cognitive pathways through which prenatal exposure to air pollution and early life stress (ELS) lead to LDiff in a sample of Black and Latinx children and adolescents. We will use novel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of neuromelanin, a by-product of midbrain dopamine, and model-based functional MRI to probe dopaminergic circuits and related inhibitory control (IC) and reinforcement learning (RL) in relation to prenatal exposure. We hypothesize that midbrain dopamine serves as a critical mechanism mediating air pollution and ELS effects on domain-general cognitive factors (IC and RL) and LDiff. The Leadership Core will establish the Hub's administrative and training infrastructure and foster the next generation of interdisciplinary LD researchers, trained in public health and LDiff through an innovative program including neuroscience research experience, methodological and translational coursework, mentoring and interdisciplinary practicum training in the educational setting. We continue our commitment to the recruitment of early career scientists from underrepresented groups, preparing them for research and leadership positions in LD. IMPACT: Through our innovative, high-risk project and integrated training/mentorship opportunities we will identify novel circuits and potentially modifiable environmental risk factors implicated in LDiff in children from economically disadvantaged families. We will develop an intellectual and administrative infrastructure to serve as a foundation for a future Center for Environmental LD Research, capable of translating our research findings into actionable prevention and intervention programs.