This is a request for a NIAAA Mentored Patient Oriented Research Career Development Award (K23). This proposal describes a 5-year plan for the development of the candidate into an independent researcher in clinical child psychiatry and will include an investigation of attention problems in Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). This project will employ neurobehavioral paradigms and volumetric magnetic resonance imaging to evaluate the hypothesis that abnormalities of attention observed in individuals with FAS are due to disturbances in both an """"""""anterior"""""""" frontostriatal network hypothesized to contribute to difficulties in motor impersistence and response inhibition, and a """"""""posterior """""""" parietal network, hypothesized to contribute to difficulties with orientation shifting attention. Through the mentorship of experts in the fields of developmental behavioral neurology, child psychiatry and neuropsychology, the candidate will embark on a course of study and mentored research that will characterize cortical networks of attention in FAS. The results of this study will lay the foundation for the future investigation of possible neurobiologic and neurobehavioral biomarkers of attention network impairment in this population of prenatally exposed individuals. Short term career goals are to become familiar with neurobehavioral paradigms used in the assessment of attention; to become proficient in the understanding and use of volumetric magnetic imaging; and to understand the basics of research design, ethics, epidemiology, and biostatistics as it applies to clinical child psychiatry. Additionally, the protected time will allow a more in depth evaluation of the FAS behavioral phenotype, with additional study in neuropharmacology, neurophysiology, neuroanatomy and psychopathology as it applies to brain-behavior relationships arising from teratogenic exposure. Long term career goals are to use the skills obtained in the didactic courses, tutorials and the mentored research project to perform independent clinical child psychiatry research in the pathogenesis of neuropsychiatric disorders associated with prenatal alcohol exposure will be investigated further in future projects, with the goal of helping design more focused mental health treatment and psychosocial remedies for the environmental disability present in many of these individuals.
