FAS: NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF CHILDREN

这个子项目是利用资源的许多研究子项目之一。 由NIH/NCRR资助的中心拨款提供。对子项目的主要支持 子项目的首席调查员可能是由其他来源提供的， 包括美国国立卫生研究院的其他来源。为子项目列出的总成本可能 表示该子项目使用的中心基础设施的估计数量， 不是由NCRR赠款提供给次级项目或次级项目工作人员的直接资金。 产前酒精暴露会导致广泛的身体和行为影响。其中最严重的是这种暴露对发育中的中枢神经系统以及后代的认知能力的影响。这些缺陷经常影响注意力、学习和记忆领域。总体而言，对患有Fas的儿童或那些产前接触过酒精的儿童的大多数评估都依赖于传统的、相当全球性的心理测试。然而，最近的研究已经开始集中在酒精致畸的更具体的神经心理学和神经解剖学测量上。例如，最近有报道称，患有自闭症的儿童在言语学习方面存在缺陷，而对所学材料的保留相对较少。此外，酒精暴露的儿童在视觉空间处理的一项指标上表现出特定的缺陷。然而，产前酒精暴露对认知功能的许多特定领域的影响尚不清楚。例如，尽管存在一些证据表明酒精暴露的儿童会出现空间记忆缺陷，但人们对酒精对视觉空间领域的致畸作用知之甚少。这项建议的目的之一是评估有大量产前酒精暴露史的儿童的视觉空间功能，使用成分-过程方法来检查这一认知功能领域的特定方面。其次，最近涉及酒精暴露儿童的磁共振成像的研究表明，大脑的三个区域可能受到特别影响。这些区域是基底节、穹隆体部和小脑鞭毛部。目前正在评估基底神经节和胼胝体异常的行为相关性，但与小脑相关的行为相关性仍未在酒精暴露的儿童中进行测试。这项建议的第二个目的是评估运动和注意力功能，这是已知与小脑相关的行为。最后，与酒精相关的认知缺陷的特异性还没有报道。因此，尚不清楚这些缺陷是酒精暴露所特有的，还是一般认知缺陷的继发性缺陷。为了实现这一目标，在这项提案的两个组成部分中，与产前酒精暴露无关的智力缺陷儿童将与酒精暴露儿童进行比较。

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. Primary support for the subproject and the subproject's principal investigator may have been provided by other sources, including other NIH sources. The Total Cost listed for the subproject likely represents the estimated amount of Center infrastructure utilized by the subproject, not direct funding provided by the NCRR grant to the subproject or subproject staff. Prenatal alcohol exposure causes a wide range of physical and behavioral effects. The most serious of these is the effect such exposure has on the developing central nervous system and thus the cognitive abilities of the offspring. These deficits often impact the areas of attention, learning, and memory. In general, most assessments of children with FAS, or those who have been prenatally exposed to alcohol, have relied on traditional, fairly global, psychological tests. Recently, however, research has begun to focus on more specific neuropsychological and neuroanatomical measures of alcohol's teratogenicity. For example, deficits in verbal learning with relative sparing in retention of learned material was recently reported in children with FAS. In addition, alcohol-exposed children displayed specific deficits on one measure of visuospatial processing. However, the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on many of the specific areas of cognitive functioning are unclear. For example, although some evidence exists that spatial memory deficits occur in alcohol-exposed children, little is known about alcohol's teratogenic effect on the visuospatial domain. One aim of this proposal is to evaluate visuospatial functioning in children with histories of heavy prenatal alcohol exposure, using a component-process approach to examine specific aspects of this domain of cognitive functioning. Secondly, recent studies involving magnetic resonance imaging of alcohol-exposed children indicate three brain areas that may be particularly affected. These areas are the basal ganglia, the corpus callosum, and the cerebellar vermis. Behavioral correlates of basal ganglia and corpus callosum abnormalities are currently being assessed but those associated with the cerebellum remain untested in alcohol-exposed children. A second aim of this proposal is to evaluate motor and attentional functioning, which are behaviors known to be associated with the cerebellum. Finally, the specificity of alcohol-related cognitive deficits has not yet been reported. Thus it is unclear whether these deficits are specific to alcohol exposure or are secondary to general cognitive deficits. To address this aim, in both components of this proposal, children with mental deficiency unrelated to prenatal alcohol exposure will be compared to alcohol-exposed children.