Component 5: Verney

胎儿酒精谱系障碍（FASD）影响超过1%的人口。FASD导致了广泛的 神经认知缺陷，这反过来又会对社会，教育和发展功能产生不利影响。 少数民族和低社会经济地位人群的FASD患病率较高， 因此受到的不利影响更大。然而，大多数研究都是在高加索人或 使用为高加索人群开发的测试，这可能会在数据中引入偏差。虽然这 研究已经确定了许多大脑系统和神经认知相关性受到FASD的影响， 这些变化和损伤的潜在机制仍然没有很好地理解，甚至更少 美国印第安人和其他受影响最严重的少数民族人口都很了解这一点。这 了解是必要的，以开发治疗这种疾病。在这里，我们的理论是， 信息处理的效率是FASD中发现的广泛认知缺陷的基础。的 本研究的目的是探讨信息加工效率，利用信息 处理任务和心理生理，即，瞳孔和眼动跟踪测量，胎儿酒精 谱系障碍我们将在20名儿童中研究FASD与神经认知功能的关系 年龄在10 - 17岁的FASD患者和20名年龄、性别和社会经济相匹配的健康对照儿童 没有FASD。一组信息处理任务将在收集信息的同时进行管理。 瞳孔反应和眼动追踪测量。新墨西哥州和美国西南部是很好的代表， 西班牙裔、美洲印第安人和社会经济地位较低的人口。因此，我们将评估认知 使用信息处理任务和心理生理措施，我们已经证明， 受文化的影响较小，因此将提供更准确的处理效率测量， 西班牙裔和美洲印第安人群体（Verney，Granholm，马歇尔，Malcarne和Saccuzzo，2005）。这 研究将在FASD儿童中进行以下具体目标：1）检查眼科效率，2） 估计信息加工效率、反应抑制和工作记忆绩效 眼动跟踪任务的反眼跳和视觉和记忆引导的眼跳任务，和3）估计 利用瞳孔反应指示脑力劳动的早期信息加工效率 处理机制。这项研究的数据将用于获得校外资金，以进一步 用信息加工和心理生理学方法研究神经认知功能 以更好地解决FASD儿童的健康差异问题。相关性：The 这项研究采用独特的方法来探索人类信息处理和基本反射的早期阶段 相对不受文化和学习经验的影响。因此，这些方法不仅具有 在基本层面揭示FASD核心特征的潜力，但也将提供 相对无文化的其他研究评估工具。

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) affects over 1% of the population. FASD results in a wide array of neurocognitive deficits, which can in turn adversely affect social, educational, and developmental functions. Ethnic minority and low socioeconomic populations have a higher prevalence rate of FASD, and are therefore more adversely affected. However, the majority of research has been performed on Caucasians or using tests developed for Caucasian populations, which may introduce biases in the data. While this research has identified a number of brain systems and neurocognitive correlates to be affected in FASD, the underlying mechanism of these changes and impairments are still not well understood, and are even less well understood for the American Indian and other ethnic minority populations that are most affected. This understanding is necessary to develop treatments for this disorder. Here, we theorize that reduced efficiency of information processing underlies the wide array of cognitive deficits found in FASD. The purpose of this study is to investigate information processing efficiency using information processing tasks and psychophysiological, i.e., pupillary and eyetracking measures, in fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. We will study of the association of FASD and neurocognitive functioning in 20 children with FASD aged 10 to 17 years and 20 age-, gender-, and socio-economic- matched healthy control children without FASD. A battery of information processing tasks will be administered while simultaneously gathering pupillary response and eyetracking measures. New Mexico and the US Southwest are well represented with Hispanic, American Indian and lower socioeconomic populations. Therefore, we will assess cognitive functioning using information-processing tasks and psychophysiological measures that we have shown to be less influenced by culture, and will therefore provide a more accurate measure of processing efficiency in Hispanic and American Indian populations (Verney, Granholm, Marshall, Malcarne, & Saccuzzo, 2005). This study will undertake the following specific aims in children with FASD: 1) examine oculomotor efficiency, 2) estimate the efficiency of information processing, response inhibition and working memory performance on eyetracking tasks of anti-saccade and visually- and memory- guided saccade tasks, and 3) estimate the efficiency of processing with pupillary response indexing mental effort on tasks tapping early information processing mechanisms. The data from this study will be used to obtain extramural funding to further investigate the neurocognitive functioning with information processing and psychophysiological approached in a diverse sample to better address the health disparity issues in children with FASD. Relevance: The study involves unique methods to probe the early stages of human information processing and basic reflexes that are relatively unaffected by cultural and learning experiences. Therefore, these methods not only have the potential of uncovering the core characteristics of FASD at a fundamental level, but will also offer relatively culture-free assessment tools for other studies.