This collaborative R01 involves parallel studies at the Universities of Wisconsin and Minnesota. The work explores the neurobiological bases of problems in attention/executive functions, sensory integration, and emotion/stress regulation exhibited by children who have experienced neglect/privation early in life. This project is motivated by renewed interest the effects of early deprivation/neglect on development, precipitated by the last decade's increase in international adoptions. In addition, it reflects concerns with brain development and neural plasticity coupled with continued controversies over the importance of early experiences and questions about sensitive periods. The marked change in living environments experienced with adoption allows a reasonable way to estimate both the duration and ages during which deprivation was experienced. To date, studies of these children have employed global measures that are difficult to map to specific neural systems. The General Aim of this project is to build upon extant studies and examine specific cognitive and affective systems.
The specific aims i dentify (a) aspects of neural circuitry that are linked to the development of cognitive processes and self-regulatory behaviors and (b) later-developing neural systems that are likely to be affected by early deprivation/neglect.
Specific Aim 1 examines frontally mediated systems believed to underlie aspects of attention, inhibitory control, and working memory.
Specific Aim 2 examines sensory-motor processing including sensory integration, acquisition, and praxis.
Specific Aim 3 explores systems thoughts to be compromised based upon the animal literature on early neglect: cortico-limbic-hypothalamic-brainstem systems that are involved in stress reactivity and regulation. Together, these studies will provide a relatively comprehensive and more specific picture of the potential neural compromises resulting from early deprivation in human children as well as highlighting those aspects of brain-behavior development that appear to be spared.
| Papale, Ligia A; Seltzer, Leslie J; Madrid, Andy et al. (2018) Differentially Methylated Genes in Saliva are linked to Childhood Stress. Sci Rep 8:10785 |
| Birn, Rasmus M; Roeber, Barbara J; Pollak, Seth D (2017) Early childhood stress exposure, reward pathways, and adult decision making. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 114:13549-13554 |
| Wismer Fries, Alison B; Pollak, Seth D (2017) The role of learning in social development: Illustrations from neglected children. Dev Sci 20: |
| Chung, Moo K; Lee, Hyekyoung; Solo, Victor et al. (2017) Topological Distances Between Brain Networks. Connectomics Neuroimaging (2017) 10511:161-170 |
| Chung, Moo K; Hanson, Jamie L; Adluru, Nagesh et al. (2017) Integrative Structural Brain Network Analysis in Diffusion Tensor Imaging. Brain Connect 7:331-346 |
| Hanson, Jamie L; van den Bos, Wouter; Roeber, Barbara J et al. (2017) Early adversity and learning: implications for typical and atypical behavioral development. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 58:770-778 |
| Chung, Moo K; Hanson, Jamie L; Ye, Jieping et al. (2015) Persistent Homology in Sparse Regression and Its Application to Brain Morphometry. IEEE Trans Med Imaging 34:1928-39 |
| Hanson, Jamie L; Nacewicz, Brendon M; Sutterer, Matthew J et al. (2015) Behavioral problems after early life stress: contributions of the hippocampus and amygdala. Biol Psychiatry 77:314-23 |
| Romens, Sarah E; McDonald, Jennifer; Svaren, John et al. (2015) Associations between early life stress and gene methylation in children. Child Dev 86:303-9 |
| Roeber, Barbara J; Gunnar, Megan R; Pollak, Seth D (2014) Early deprivation impairs the development of balance and bilateral coordination. Dev Psychobiol 56:1110-8 |
Showing the most recent 10 out of 42 publications
