The Trans-NIH baby Brain Cognitive Development (bBCD) Study

Presenter:

Shelli Avenevoli, Ph.D.
National Institute of Mental Health

Goal:

The goal of this project is to understand the long-term impacts of pre- and perinatal drug and adverse environmental (e.g., parental neglect, physical abuse) exposures on brain development and social/behavioral/academic achievement and how these in turn impact risk for substance use and mental illness.

Rationale:

There has been a dramatic increase in the number of babies who have been prenatally exposed to opioids due to the opioid crisis. Between 2004 and 2014, the number of infants born with neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome (NOWS; also known as neonatal abstinence syndrome [NAS]) increased 433% from 1.5 to 8.0 per 1000 hospital births which translates into one neonate born with NOWS every 15 minutes. As this crisis continues to escalate, these numbers will also increase, and we do not know what the long-term implications of early exposure to opioids (or to medications used to treat opioid use disorder) will be. In addition, other drugs continue to be used during pregnancy and afterwards when many women are breastfeeding. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health indicates that in 2016, 6.3% of pregnant women used an illicit drug (Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality, 2017), and many use more than one drug.

A large and growing body of evidence indicates that early exposure to substances, including pre- or perinatally, is linked to greater risk for developing substance use disorders. Moreover, prenatal exposure is also associated with other behavioral problems, including ADHD, conduct disorder, anxiety, etc. However, a causal link is difficult to establish due to confounding factors such as socioeconomic, environmental, and genetic influences. To disentangle the many factors that underlie this association, we propose to establish a large cohort (e.g., 7,500) of pregnant women from regions of the country significantly impacted by the opioid crisis and follow them and their newborns through childhood. The cohort will also include non-exposed children, which will establish normative brain and behavioral development trajectories for socioeconomically and environmentally matched children, to which altered trajectories can be compared. This prospective approach will allow us to investigate prodromal changes in brain and behavioral development resulting from early exposure to opioids, other substances, and associated adverse conditions that might predict emergence of substance use disorders and other mental illness.

Key research objectives include, but are not limited to:

• Understanding variability in individual developmental trajectories (e.g., brain, cognitive, emotional, social, academic) from birth through childhood.
• Understanding the impact of pre- and postnatal exposure to opioids, opioid treatment medications, cannabis, alcohol, tobacco, other prescription or illicit substances (alone or in combination) on developmental trajectories.
• Investigating the role of sex, genetic, epigenetic, social and other environmental factors on risk/resilience related to structural and functional brain development, social/behavioral/academic achievement, and future substance use and mental disorders.