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

项目摘要 应聘者：这份申请是为妮可·麦克唐纳博士颁发的K23职业发展奖，F32 加州大学洛杉矶分校博士后(获奖过渡为助理教授 开始日期)。麦克唐纳博士的职业目标是成为非典型社会问题的独立调查者 发展，以便为识别和治疗高危婴儿的努力提供信息。这一K23奖项将为Dr。 麦克唐纳拥有必要的培训和指导经验，以获得以下专业知识：1)高级 发育神经科学和电生理(EEG)测量婴儿脑的方法 2)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)纵向数据建模的统计方法。环境： 指导将由脑电专家沙法里·杰斯特、伊莎贝尔·珀迪和达拉·森图尔克博士提供 方法与神经发育障碍、高危NICU毕业生的脑发育，并进行统计学 分别为复杂的生物医学数据建立模型。研究和职业发展：从最初的日子开始 在生活中，大脑发育发生在婴儿和照顾者之间的日常互动中。 婴儿大脑功能的差异可能在早期社会互动中断之前和之后， 引发不良社会后果的风险，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病房(NICU)住院时间的婴儿携带 多种相互作用的风险因素增加了社会赤字的可能性，包括生物学上的， 环境和社会经济风险。这项研究将建立在有家族风险的婴儿的文献基础上。 自闭症(即自闭症儿童的年幼兄弟姐妹)，这已经确定了社会上越来越大的分歧 6-12个月大的沟通行为和大脑发育。通过协作 在加州大学洛杉矶分校高危婴儿随访诊所和自闭症研究和治疗中心之间，这 这项研究将考察高危人群6至12个月的社会行为和大脑发育的轨迹 NICU毕业生、有自闭症家族风险的婴儿和低风险对照组。经过充分验证的社会衡量标准 行为和EEG，一种可访问和可扩展的方法，用于测量大脑功能和连接 婴儿期，将被用来比较发展轨迹，并检查早期差异 预测24个月后社会功能和发育的变化。我们的最终目标是将 确定行为和大脑标记物，对旨在优化社交网络的干预措施进行针对性研究 高危NICU毕业生的发展。这些目标直接涉及NICHD的研究优先事项； 特别是，《智力和发育障碍的生物标记物和结果衡量标准研究》 症状、严重程度评估和治疗，特别是针对认知、行为、 社会和医疗方面的问题。

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.”