My application for an RSDA (K02) award reflects a series of steps in my own career development that have brought my work to the study of the behavioral teratology of substance abuse, specifically cocaine, and to the multidisciplinary approach to the study of children growing up in cocaine abusing homes. From the beginning of my career as a research fellow in neonatology and developmental pediatrics and then as a faculty member in the Yale Child Study Center, the focus of my research has been on the developmental outcome of infants and young children at biological and psychosocial risk for developmental impairments. Because I am a pediatrician with additional training in neonatology, developmental pediatrics and psychology, and child psychiatry, I bring to my work and understanding of basic physiological processes in infants, of children's psychological development, and of experimental techniques from developmental psychology. With this award, I plan to enhance my investigative skills and understanding in the particular applications to studies of prenatal cocaine exposure of techniques for studying attentional regulation and the contribution of environmental effects to early attentional and information processing. Specifically, there are five areas of career development relevant to substance abuse that I have planned for the period covered by this award: (1) The study of psychological and psychiatric functioning among cocaine abusing adults particularly in those domains such as attention that may influence their functioning as parents; (2) Studying the regulation of arousal and attention among cocaine-exposed infants and toddlers using a combination of neurobehavioral and physiological assessments; (3) Developing assessment techniques for studying impulsivity and attention among preschool and early school aged children who were exposed to cocaine prenatally and have also been cared for in cocaine using families; (4) Through collaborative projects, integrating neurobehavioral studies in infants with animal models examining both analogous neurobehavioral functions and the ontogeny and function of monoaminergic neurotransmitter systems after prenatal cocaine exposure; and (5) Developing biologic- environment interaction models for how the effects of prenatal cocaine exposure interact with the postnatal cocaine using environment to mediate the child's developmental outcome. My broader interest as I develop my investigative career in the field of substance abuse is to bring a multidisciplinary focus to studies of the effects of pre- and postnatal cocaine exposure on children's functioning. The specific research program proposed in this application is part of NIDA funded R01 project that examines the effects of prenatal cocaine exposure on the infant's and young child's state regulatory capacities, regulation of attention, the development of language and symbolic play, and the contributions of maternal interactive style particularly in terms of attention directing activities. This research and career development program involves collaborations with individuals with a long-standing interest in substance abuse research and is done in the supportive environment of the Yale Child Study Center with its active commitment to clinically informed, multidisciplinary research about basic developmental processes.
