The Psychiatry, Psychology, and Public Health Collaborative Learning Disabilities Innovation Hub

The Psychiatry, Psychology, and Public Health Collaborative Learning Disabilities (LD) Innovation Hub brings together experts from distinct fields–-LD and neuropsychology, child psychiatry, cognitive neuroscience, public health and environmental science–-to improve our etiologic understanding of learning difficulties (LDiff), defined both dimensionally and categorically by performance in the lowest quartile on standardized measures of reading and math. Our study includes children from economically disadvantaged families—populations at high risk for prenatal exposure to neurotoxic chemicals and learning problems. The Hub will establish infrastructure to (a) foster innovative research into the complex etiology and neural underpinnings of LDiff in the context of economic disadvantage, and (b) train future interdisciplinary LD scholars and leaders in cutting-edge neuroscience and to engage with the wider child educational system. The Hub will document how prenatal chemical exposures contribute to the achievement gap in the United States. Long term, the Hub will help close the achievement gap by identifying behavioral and neural pathways from prenatal exposures to LDiff—pathways that may be amenable to change. The Embedded Research Project will identify neural and cognitive pathways through which prenatal exposure to air pollution and early life stress (ELS) lead to LDiff in children and adolescents. We will use novel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of neuromelanin, a by-product of midbrain dopamine, and model-based functional MRI to probe dopaminergic circuits and related inhibitory control (IC) and reinforcement learning (RL) in relation to prenatal exposure. We hypothesize that midbrain dopamine serves as a critical mechanism mediating air pollution and ELS effects on domain-general cognitive factors (IC and RL) and LDiff. The Leadership Core will establish the Hub's administrative and training infrastructure and foster the next generation of interdisciplinary LD researchers, trained in public health and LDiff through an innovative program including neuroscience research experience, methodological and translational coursework, mentoring and interdisciplinary practicum training in the educational setting. We continue our commitment to the recruitment of early career scientists preparing them for research and leadership positions in LD. IMPACT: Through our innovative, high-risk project and integrated training/mentorship opportunities we will identify novel circuits and potentially modifiable risk factors implicated in LDiff in children from economically disadvantaged families. We will develop an intellectual and administrative infrastructure to serve as a foundation for future research, capable of translating our research findings into actionable prevention and intervention programs.