Aims:

Our aim is to develop a method which can identify highly unusual patterns of pre- and postnatal growth within the individuals recruited to the DDD (Deciphering Developmental Disorders) study.

AIMS

The aim of this study will be to collect speech and language data from the young adults in the ALSPAC cohort. This will enable a comparison with their performance at previous timepoints (for example, 8 years, 5 years, or in preschool) and with their social functioning in adulthood. Little is known about long term outcomes for individuals with persistent speech and language impairment with regard to whether or not their problems resolve as they get older. It is known however that when problems persist, individuals are at greater risk for low academic outcome, decreased employment opportunities, increased involvement in criminal activity and increased mental health problems. It is not clear whether these increased risks are due to poor communication skills per se, or whether impaired speech and language in the early years affects other skills, such as social and academic progress, which in turn reduces the individuals' opportunities.

AIMS:

The aims of the analysis of ALSPAC data are

- To determine the incidence of risk factors for various childhood problems in this cohort

- To determine the incidence of childhood problems in this cohort

- Where data availability allows, to determine the course of these problems (persistence over time)

- To investigate clustering of multiple problems within children

- To estimate the impact of childhood problems on later outcomes, adjusting for confounders

Research Objectives:

The purpose of this project is to determine the effect of deviations from expected birth weight on later life outcomes within the ALSPAC cohort. The study will have the following two specific aims:

1. To develop and validate a method of determining expected birth weight9, 10 through the use of a prediction equation to be developed based on the relationship between gestational age, parity, gender, and other maternal characteristics (age, height, weight, smoking status, mother's own birth weight) and birth weight of offspring in the ALSPAC cohort.

2. To relate deviations from expected birth weight to a set of later life outcomes in the ALSPAC cohort including markers of cognitive development and function and cardiovascular disease outcomes.

Here I propose to include questions on emotional, physical and sexual abuse to the next ALSPAC YPs questionnaire. This proposal is directly linked to approved project B2134. As noted above, there is an inceasing interest in abuse as a novel cardiometabolic risk factor. As part of project B2134 I propose to study this association in ALSPAC mothers and fathers. Collecting these data in the YPs will allow to do so in this cohort as well and will enhance ALSPAC as a resource to study intergenarational, familial patterns of abuse.

Aims

1)We will test the hypotheses that risk alleles in the general population impact on pre-pubertal neurodevelopmental domains involving 1) emotion/mood regulation 2) cognition/learning 3) social cognition/communication and 4) behaviour regulation.

2) Test the hypothesis that mental disorder RP scores that we find to contribute to domains of neurodevelopment at age 7/8 years have longitudinal effects.

3) Test that bullying/victimisation at 7/8 years further predicts longitudinal change in RP score-associated neurodevelopmental domains.

The broad aims of our study are as follows;

1.Examine the association of metabochip variants with ALP, ALT, AST, GGT, Bilirubin and Albumin to determine whether (i) these replicate published GWAS findings and (ii) identify new variants

2.Undertake Mendelian randomization study of the causal effect of ALP, ALT, AST, GGT, Bilirubin and Albumin (markers of liver damage) with CHD, stroke, type 2 diabetes events and with risk factors for these outcomes (i.e: fasting glucose, fasting insulin, LDL, HDL, Triglycerides, total cholesterol, SBP and DBP)

AIMS

The aim of the proposed project is to investigate a specific cognitive process that has been hypothesized by several neuropsychological models to play a causal role in depression; affective cognitive control. The study aims to address the lack of population based studies using computer based behavioural measures of affective cognitive control to investigate a) cross-sectional and longitudinal associations with depression and b) associations between potentially preventable environmental risk factors and affective cognitive control in adolescence. Findings of the research are intended to contribute to an evidence base for new prevention strategies for depression that target affective cognitive control.

AIMS:

The aims of this research are therefore to examine the impact of domestic violence as measured in the ALSPAC cohort on the behavioural and emotional development of children up to age 8 years, and examine factors that may increase the likelihood of resilience. In particular, both physical and non-physical forms of domestic violence, and the parental role in the impact of violence on child outcomes will be explicitly examined. The research questions to be addressed are:

1. There will be variation in the behavioural and emotional development of children exposed to domestic violence;

2. The variation in behavioural and emotional development of children exposed to domestic violence will vary depending on which parent used violence and which parent was victimised;

3. The variation in behavioural and emotional development of children exposed to domestic violence will vary depending on the type of domestic violence to which they were exposed (physical, emotional, combined);

4. Children who are identified as resilient in the context of physical domestic violence will be identified as resilient in the context of non-physical domestic violence;

5. The relationship between exposure to domestic violence and child development will be mediated or moderated by: maternal depression; parenting quality; child's cognitive ability and child's temperament.