Understanding the Cognitive Neural Signatures of Childhood Maltreatment in Adolescents as a Means to Advance the Science of Targeted Academic Intervention to this Vulnerable Population

The K01 proposal seeks to provide an early career educational neuroscientist (Dr. Suzanne Perkins) with the training, mentorship, and resources to fill the gap in the need for translational and transdisciplinary researchers in childhood maltreatment (CM) who can navigate between neuroscience and social welfare to bring needed intervention to this population. This award will provide the necessary support to launch her independent scientific career focused on CM using advanced neuroscience methods to delineate cognitive developmental neural mechanisms for children that experience childhood maltreatment leading to cognitive functioning deficits. The candidate's scientific goal is to define the brain basis of adverse cognitive consequences of CM, refine a mechanistic theory, and develop mechanism-targeted interventions for early preventative care for this population. Although there has been great progress in understanding the role of early life adversities (ELA) on the development of psychopathology, there is limited research on behavioral and neuroscience models of academic deficits in this population. In the proposed project, the candidate will harness her expertise as a former special educator to identify CM neural patterns in a large adolescent sample of normative development (ABCD) and a newly acquired substantiated CM sample, develop best practices neuroscience methods for smaller CM-specific cohorts, test a mechanistic theory, and work with community partners toward the development of intervention. To examine the proposed neurobiological model of CM, a series of multivariate predictive models of resting-state and task-based measures of cognition will be conducted using Brain Basis Set (BBS) modeling with principal component reduced data and a leave-one-site-out cross-validation framework. The candidate aims to 1) develop transdisciplinary and data-driven approaches to the identification of CM cohorts in a large cognitive developmental dataset (ABCD), 2) distinguish cognitive neurobiological models of CM using the cohorts derived in phase 1 of adolescents with CM from ABCD and 3) Adjust Phase 2 derived predictive models to a pilot sample of adolescents with substantiated CM (n = 60) and matched controls (n = 60) to accurately model the complex characteristics of CM. Finally use derived models as pilot data in subsequent R-level awards. Dr. Perkins will complete the following training objectives: 1) Train in translational and transdisciplinary CM science, 2) gain expertise in developing machine learning (ML) brain-wide networks in theoretical and data-derived CM cohorts and translation of those networks to smaller CM cohorts, and 3) Gain expertise in working with community partners. The proposed K01 aims and objectives will ensure that Dr. Perkins is positioned for an independent scientific career in translating neurocognitive science to social welfare intervention and developing educational early interventions to target disrupted neural function. This will set the candidate up to fill a gap in CM researchers bridging disciplinary gaps that hamper intervention development. Project Number: 1K01HD114900-01A1 | Fiscal Year: 2025 | NIH Institute/Center: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) | Principal Investigator: SUZANNE PERKINS | Institution: UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR, ANN ARBOR, MI | Award Amount: $134,568 | Activity Code: K01 | Study Section: Biobehavioral and Behavioral Sciences Study Section[CHHD-H] View on NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/1K01HD11490001A1