Environmental Influences on Neurocognitive Development of Control and Adolescent Substance Use

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT This K01 proposal seeks to provide Dr. Omid Kardan, an early-career environmental neuroscientist, with the mentorship, training, and resources necessary to launch a career as an independent research-oriented investigator focused on 1) the impact of the physical environment on neurodevelopmental risk factors for

Substance Use Disorders (SUDs) and 2) leveraging this knowledge to inform SUD prevention efforts in at-risk youth. The candidate will work towards this long-term goal through the completion of a research project focused on predicting trajectories of Executive Control and Attention function (ECA) in youth as a function of brain

architecture and environment. Specifically, the project aims to construct robust whole-brain network predictors of normative ECA development throughout adolescence, assess if attenuated trajectory of growth in these network predictors is related to initiation/escalation of Substance Use Behaviors (SUB), and identify physical

environmental factors that contribute to lower-than-expected ECA development and subsequent SUB outcomes. Research in environmental psychology and epidemiology has found physical environmental factors such as neighborhood air pollution, low greenspace, and high visual disorderliness to be associated with negative

cognitive and developmental outcomes. However, there is currently no large scale, replicable research in which neurocognitive, socioeconomic (SES), and physical environmental factors are conjointly used to make reliable and generalizable predictions of SUB trajectory for individual youth. The candidate will combine his existing

expertise in environmental neuroscience with new training in developmental neuroscience of SUDs and longitudinal methods in analysis of multivariate data to elucidate the role of the environment in the emergence of SUD-related brain phenotypes. The candidate will conduct extensive analyses with one large dataset

(Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study), and two datasets enriched for at-risk families and low-income neighborhoods (Michigan Longitudinal Study and Michigan Twins Neurogenetics Study) to 1) Construct multivariate neuromarkers of ECA trajectory in adolescence and investigate their relationship with SUBs, and 2)

Determine neighborhood SES and physical environmental factors that are related to SUB and predict trajectory differences in neuromarker for ECA. Completion of the following training objectives will ensure that the candidate can both carry out the proposed project and establish himself as an independent investigator who is well-

equipped to conduct future projects following from this work: 1) Increase knowledge about SUD risk factors and SUBs 2) Gain expertise in advanced statistical methods to analyze longitudinal multivariate data, and 3) Increase knowledge about contextual influences in neurodevelopment in adolescence. Completion of the proposed K01

goals will be a crucial step towards the utilization of environmental neuroscience methods that may ultimately inform SUD prevention efforts by identifying multi-level predictors of early SUD risk, and set up the candidate to independently conduct leading edge research in the interest of this larger goal.