SCOR Project #3 (Bandstra) relates to the overall Center and the preclinical projects in that it examines animportant women's health problem (addiction and related disorders) from an interdisciplinary approach overthe lifespan from gestation through adolescence, and ultimately, adulthood. The study seeks to answerimportant questions about previously understudied hypothesized sex and gender differences in druginvolvement through late adolescence as well as the outcomes of female (versus male) offspring exposed todrugs in utero. The project emanates from a well-established research program on perinatal substanceabuse. Participants (lowSES, inner-city African American infants and their mothers) were enrolled atdelivery (n=476) and have been assessed for developmental, neuropsychological, educational, and social-environmental outcomes through early adolescence (retention 85%). Within a developmental model allowingfor multiple determinants of behavior and health, this project seeks to estimate male-female differences inprogression through levels of adolescent drug involvement, with examination of hypothesized mediators andcorrelates including stress/coping, internalizing/externalizing behaviors, impulsivity and risk-takingpropensity. The influence of in utero cocaine exposure on observed male-female differences will beassessed. Subjects will be tested at ages 16 and 18 by self-report and biomarkers for drug involvement,caregiver and self-report of psychosocial risk factors, and measures of stress reactivity (with salivarycortisol), risk-taking, and decision-making. Benefiting from data from a related K01, the study will have 4waves of data on drug involvement from ages 12-18 years for analyses with a sex/gender focus and linkageto earlier data on in utero and longitudinal measurements (e.g., neuropsychological functioning, internalizingand externalizing behaviors). Findings should undergird future planned serial assessments of druginvolvement into adulthood, when drug dependence among women during child-bearing years is anticipatedto be more prominent, endangering their health and that of their offspring. The ultimate goal is enhancedunderstanding of the differential effects of drugs of abuse in females and males across development (fromprenatal to postnatal exposures during adolescence and adulthood), resulting in improved sex-, gender-, andage-specific preventions and treatments for drug addiction and related conditions.
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