Targeting Cognition and Motivation in Coordinated Specialty Care for Early Psychosis: A Grant Report.

In this grant report, we describe our project to expand measurement-based psychiatric care across 6 early psychosis treatment teams in Minnesota, and to provide a neuroscience-informed cognitive training and motivation enhancement program for individuals with early psychosis. This project is part of the NIMH Early Psychosis Intervention Network (EPINET) initiative which seeks to link data from treatment centers nationally that offer evidence-based specialty care to persons experiencing early psychosis. Systematic analyses of pooled data collected in EPINET will help inform methods for early psychosis care, psychosis risk factors, and pre-emptive interventions.

Executive and Social Functioning Across Development in Children and Adolescents With Prenatal Alcohol Exposure.

Background: Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) is linked to a variety of neurodevelopmental challenges, including social functioning (SF) and executive functioning (EF) deficits. These deficits present differently across developmental stages from preschool age to adolescence.

Methods: The post hoc analyses described here were conducted on data from 83 preschool-age children with PAE (early childhood group; ages 2.

Early delay of gratification predicts later inhibitory control and academic performance in children with prenatal alcohol exposure.

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) affects 2-5% of the children in the United States. In the preschool age-range, inhibitory deficits frequently manifest as impaired ability to delay gratification, which is associated with deficits in cognitive flexibility in these children. The goal of this longitudinal study was to determine whether the ability to delay gratification in preschool children with FASD is (1) associated with broader manifestations in temperament and behavior; (2) predictive of later inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility and working memory in middle childhood; and (3) predictive of later parent-reported behavioral problems and school functioning in middle childhood.

Four-year follow-up of a randomized controlled trial of choline for neurodevelopment in fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

Background: Despite the high prevalence of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), there are few interventions targeting its core neurocognitive and behavioral deficits. FASD is often conceptualized as static and permanent, but interventions that capitalize on brain plasticity and critical developmental windows are emerging. We present a long-term follow-up study evaluating the neurodevelopmental effects of choline supplementation in children with FASD 4 years after an initial efficacy trial.