Cortical Maturation and ERPs in Cocaine-Exposed Children

描述(由申请人提供)： 这项高级科学家奖的申请是基于十多年来关于父母在怀孕期间滥用可卡因对儿童情绪调节和执行控制功能发展的影响的研究工作的基础上，纵向队列中的暴露和非暴露的儿童自出生以来。在这个高级研究奖项期间，我有三个目标。首先，我计划在接下来的五年里进一步发展和加强我们研究实验室的最新组成部分--我们的高密度事件相关电位实验室，并将这种方法应用于研究接触可卡因的儿童的皮质成熟。这第一个目标旨在扩展关于参与事件相关电位(ERP)研究的产前暴露于可卡因的学龄儿童的皮质功能的有希望的初步发现。在作为我的科学计划和最近资助的NIDA应用程序(RO1 DA17863-01)的初步ERP研究中，ERP研究结果表明，早期接触可卡因可能会抑制认知加工过程中大脑区域参与的专门化和流线化，从而使任务处理开始得更慢，需要更多的皮质参与，并且需要更多的时间来完成。基于这些发现，我们建议使用事件相关电位方法，在11岁、12岁和13岁时重复访问369名参加正在进行的纵向研究(RO1 DA-06025)的儿童，使用三个刺激反应实验、Stroop、熟悉-新奇词汇范式和P300传统的“奇球”范式。在儿童中使用事件相关电位方法的研究表明，它在研究额叶成熟方面具有潜力，因此它可能为阐明产前可卡因暴露对皮质功能和认知功能发育过程的一般和特殊影响提供必要的额外信息。这样的信息可能会导致对这些发育问题的更好的定义和治疗。作为这一资深科学家奖的第二个目标，我将在接下来的五年里致力于发展我在事件相关电位作为神经成像技术方面的专业知识，并设计适当的范例来研究来自高风险环境和生物风险条件的儿童前额叶皮质成熟的各个方面。第三，在我实验室发展的下一个阶段，我将利用我们高密度的ERP和神经生理学实验室的资源，进一步增加博士后和博士后研究员在行为神经科学方面的培训机会。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application for a senior scientist award builds on over decade of work on studies of the impact of parental cocaine abuse during pregnancy on children's developing emotional regulatory and executive control functions in a longitudinal cohort of exposed and non-exposed children followed since birth. I have three goals for the period of this senior research award. First, I plan to devote these next five years to further developing and enhancing the newest component of our research laboratory, our high density event related potential lab and the application of this method to studying cortical maturation in cocaine-exposed children. This first goal seeks to extend promising preliminary findings regarding cortical functioning in prenatally cocaine exposed school-aged children participating in event related potential (ERP) studies. In the preliminary ERP studies that are the basis of my scientific plan and of a recently funded NIDA application (RO1 DA17863-01), ERP findings indicate that early exposure to cocaine may inhibit the specialization and streamlining of brain region involvement during cognitive processing such that task processing is slower to begin, requires more diverse cortical involvement, and requires more time to complete. Based on these findings, we propose to use ERP methods to assess with repeated visits at 11,12, & 13 years the 369 children participating in an ongoing longitudinal study (RO1 DA-06025) using three stimulus response experiments, the Stroop, a familiar-novel words paradigm, and a P300 traditional "odd-ball" paradigm. Research utilizing ERP methodology in children has demonstrated its potential in studying frontal maturation, and thus it may provide additional information necessary for clarifying the general and specific effects of prenatal cocaine exposure on cortical functioning and the developmental course of cognitive functions. Such information may then lead to better definition and treatment of these developmental problems. As the second goal of this senior scientist award, I will devote these next five years to developing my expertise in event related potentials as a neuroimaging technique and to designing appropriate paradigms for studying aspects of prefrontal cortical maturation in children from high-risk environments and biological risk conditions. Third, during this next phase of my laboratory development, I will further enhance the opportunities for pre-doctoral and post-doctoral fellows training in behavioral neuroscionce using resources of our high density ERP and neurophysiology laboratories.