P50 Component 6:Neurocognitive Markers of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders

(Co-PIs: Stephen & P. Kodituwakku; Co-I: E. Kodituwakku) will extend their retrospective studies combining neurobehavioral assessment of adaptive skills, executive control and information processing combined with magnetoencephalographic (MEG) / EEG analyses of pro-saccades and a sustained attention to response task (SART) in FASD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and typically developing preadolescents, with the goal of identifying the combination of imaging and behavioral measures that optimally differentiates between these three groups. They now have preliminary data suggesting that MEG measures are more sensitive in differentiating FASD from typically developing controls than behavioral visual prosaccade measures alone. Furthermore, the preliminary data for the SART suggests that different electrophysiological measures differentiate FASD from controls and ADHD children, respectively. Combined with behavioral assessments we expect these measures will help identify a unique signature of prenatal ethanol exposure to facilitate identification of alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder (ARND) in pre-adolescent children.