FAS--NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF CHILDREN

描述：(改编自申请人的摘要)产前饮酒 暴露会造成广泛的身体和行为影响。最多的 其中最严重的是这种暴露对正在发展中的中央银行的影响 神经系统，从而影响后代的认知能力。这些 缺陷通常会影响注意力、学习和记忆的领域。在……里面 一般情况下，大多数对Fas儿童的评估，或那些已经 产前接触酒精，依赖于传统的，相当全球化的， 心理测试。然而，最近的研究已经开始关注更多 酒精的特定神经心理和神经解剖学测量 致畸性。例如，在与亲属的言语学习中存在缺陷 最近有报道称，儿童在保留学习材料方面有所节制。 和Fas一起。此外，接触酒精的儿童表现出特定的缺陷。 关于视觉空间处理的一种衡量标准。然而，产前的影响 酒精暴露对认知功能的许多特定领域的影响 不清楚。例如，尽管有证据表明空间记忆 酒精暴露的儿童会出现缺陷，对酒精的了解很少 视觉空间领域的致畸效应。这项提议的一个目的是 评估有重症史的儿童的视觉空间功能 产前酒精暴露，使用成分-过程方法检查 认知功能的这一领域的具体方面。 其次，最近涉及核磁共振成像的研究 酒精暴露的儿童提示大脑的三个区域可能特别 受影响。这些区域是基底节、胼胝体和 小脑蠕虫。基底节和脑体的行为相关性研究 目前正在评估骨痂异常，但与之相关的 在酒精暴露的儿童中，小脑仍未进行测试。一秒钟 这项建议的目的是评估运动和注意力功能，这 都是已知与小脑有关的行为。 最后，与酒精相关的认知缺陷的特异性还没有确定。 已经上报了。因此，目前还不清楚这些赤字是否特定于 酒精暴露或与一般认知缺陷相比是次要的。致信地址 这一目标，在这项提案的两个组成部分中，都是有精神障碍的儿童 与产前酒精暴露无关的缺乏症将被比作 酗酒的儿童。

DESCRIPTION: (Adapted from the APPLICANT'S ABSTRACT) 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.