Early Markers to Predict Cognition and Brain Development

Damien Fair of Oregon Health & Science University in the U.S. will determine whether combinations of prenatal and early postnatal stress markers can be used to predict the developmental trajectories of specific cognitive processes known as executive functions, which underlie goal-directed behavior and are important for many social and academic skills. They will use their maternal-infant macaque model to identify stress markers such as maternal nutrition, heart rate, and cortisol levels that correlate with the later development of specific behaviors in offspring, and with brain connectivity at different developmental stages as measured by magnetic resonance imaging. The identified brain imaging and stress markers will also be analyzed using their dataset derived from maternal-infant humans.