Sarah Mattson, Principal Investigator/Program Director
FASD in San Diego and Moscow
Ilona Autti-Ramo, Investigator
Neurobehavioral Outcome in Adolescents with FAS & FASD
FASD in San Diego and Moscow
The current proposal is in response to RFA-AA-03-002 and is part of the consortium application, entitled "Cross-Cultural Assessment of FASD." This RFA calls for, in part, "research to better define and characterize the description of FASD" including identification of core deficits in this population. The current application meets this goal by proposing research aimed at identifying core neuropsychological and neuroanatomical features in children with fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) in two samples of children in two countries, the United States and Russia.
Thirty years of research and practice have confirmed that (1) alcohol is a teratogen, (2) the brain is the organ most sensitive to alcohol's effects, and (3) the effects are of a continuous nature. Questions that remain pertain to whether a profile of core deficits and strengths exists, what this profile tells us about the underlying function of the brain, and whether effects can be accounted for by other environmental circumstances like living environment or general intellectual functioning. The current proposal includes both neuropsychological and brain imaging studies and is aimed at characterizing an FASD phenotype. Importantly, two distinct populations will be assessed, children in San Diego, California, and children in Moscow, Russia. The inclusion of these two populations will allow us to answer important questions relating to the role of environment, culture, and general intellectual functioning in the phenotype of FASD. Children in Moscow will primarily be ascertained from boarding schools and orphanages that house children with subnormal intellectual functioning. We have previously determined the rates of FAS in this population are very high. Children in San Diego will be ascertained from ongoing studies of FASD at the SDSU Center for Behavioral Teratology. Thus, we have the unique opportunity to examine the relationship between FASD, IQ, and living environment in large groups of children.
In addition to the unique aspects mentioned above, the current application dovetails with other applications in the consortium, allowing large groups of children with FASD to be examined in several international sites using consistent measures. The opportunity for convergence of data from these multiple sites provides tremendous power to test specific hypotheses regarding the phenotype of FASD.
Neurobehavioral Outcome in Adolescents with FAS & FASD
The present proposal outlines a research project to be conducted on adolescents and young adults that have earlier been assigned diagnoses of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) or Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). The general aim is to study the status in adolescence of these persons on many levels: educational and societal, cognitive and behavioral, as well as neurobiological. The first specific aim is to evaluate long-term outcome for FAS/FASD in Finland. Using questionnaires and in-depth interviews the education and professional activities as well as social functioning and mental well-being of the study group is reviewed. High rates of secondary disabilities have been reported for young adults with FAS/FASD in the United States. It is of interest to see whether the same difficulties appear in other cultures. Specifically, it would be of interest to know to what extent the secondary disabilities are influenced by the social context in which the children with FAS grow up. The second specific aim is to assess the neurocognitive profile of the FAS/FASD subjects. We intend to perform a comprehensive assessment of neurocognitive abilities, including attention and executive functioning, language, visual perception, motor functioning as well as memory and learning. The importance of a broad neuropsychological assessment has been stressed by us and by others since prenatal alcohol prenatal alcohol may affect many areas of neuropsychological functioning. The third specific aim is to obtain further information concerning the neurobiological pathology and structural abnormalities underlying impairments specific to FAS/FASD. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) is carried out in order to study whether possible brain anatomic and metabolic deviance may underlie characteristic impairments of FAS/FASD. Results are compared with neuropsychological findings. Furthermore, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is carried out in order to gather more understanding of the vulnerability of structural brain development during pregnancy.