Five years of core support is requested for competitive renewal of the John F. Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development of Vanderbilt University. The Kennedy Center's NICHD Mental Retardation Research Center grant, now in its 30th year, supports a broad-based interdisciplinary research program on behavioral, intellectual, and brain development. The Kennedy enter's aims are to understand the conditions giving rise to vulnerability to abnormalities in brain and behavioral development and to promote resilience to those events. The program bridges back neuroscience and genetics, and applications in special education, communication disorders, and developmental and clinical psychology. Research on vulnerability includes genetic and environmental causes of vulnerability, e.g., genetic syndromes, conditions associated with poverty, lack of adequate early parenting, limited language opportunities, exposure to neurotoxins such as alcohol during pregnancy. Factors contributing to resilience include early social cognitive interventions, gene therapy, early educational interventions, use of medications, and promoting neuroplasticity through early experience. Problem through research within this framework requires integrated teams of investigators working on common problems interacting to transcend disciplinary barriers. The Kennedy Center's research program is organized around four groups of researchers sharing common scientific interests, theoretical approaches, methods and often shared physical space and resources. These teams are called Institutes: (1) Institute on Developmental Neuroscience, (2) Institute on Language, Social, and Cognitive Development, (3) Institute on Genetics and Developmental Pharmacology, and (4) Institute on Learning Accommodations for Individuals with Special Needs: To coordinate and support the research activities of these research teams. These core units are proposed: Administrative Services, Neuroscience Services, Research Participant & Communication Services, Quantitative and Observational Methodology, and Technology and Media Services.
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