Longitudinal investigation of the relations among stress, brain activity, neurocognitive skill, and socioemotional functioning during infancy

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT This K99/R00 Pathway to Independence application would provide me with the training necessary to achieve my career goal of establishing an independent research laboratory that investigates the relations between stress, functional brain development, and later neurocognitive and socioemotional outcomes in racially and ethnically diverse populations. My training in developmental cognitive neuroscience provides me with the foundation necessary to pursue this goal. However, to lead a laboratory, I require additional training in culturally sensitive research practices, stress theory, multivariate stress assessment, advanced infant EEG analysis methods, infant eye tracking, and laboratory management. The protected training period of the K99 phase of this award would allow me to enter the independent stage of my career with the theoretical, methodological, and management skills necessary to establish a research team ready to study the role of stress–brain interactions in the development of neurocognitive and socioemotional skills. Research Project: Chronic stress has detrimental effects on neurocognitive development. However, the neural mechanisms underlying stress-neurocognition relations are not well understood – particularly in infancy. Emerging evidence implicates stress-related alterations in functional brain development as a possible pathway by which stress impacts long-term neurocognitive and socioemotional functioning. While studies have independently identified links between chronic stress, infant brain activity, neurocognition, and socioemotional outcomes, the testing of these relations in a mechanistic, longitudinal framework has not yet been conducted. The proposed project aims to leverage longitudinal data from a diverse population of mothers and infants to examine the relations between maternal stress, infant resting brain activity, neurocognitive skill, and socioemotional skill. Consistent with my preliminary data, I will examine whether maternal stress-related alterations in infant brain activity exist at 1 month and 1 year of age (Aim 1), and whether stress-related alterations in brain function are related to future and concurrent measures of neurocognitive and socioemotional functioning (Aim 2). In the R00 phase, I will determine how a child’s own physiologic stress is related to alterations in brain activity and prospectively predicts deficits in neurocognitive and socioemotional functioning by school entry (Aim 3). Elucidating the direct influence of chronic physiological stress on alterations in brain development and the functional significance of such alterations in a diverse sample of participants is not only novel, but it provides important insights for early identification and invention of future long-term cognitive and socioemotional outcomes.