Proposal summaries
B324 - Sleep Disordered Breathing and Growth Failure in Young Children - 06/03/2006
Infant malnutrition is a major problem on the South Asian subcontinent. Rates of malnutrition and stunting are very high in South Asian societies. Interestingly, some evidence suggests that this phenomenon may be influenced by cultural factors. These include infant feeding practices such as a use of the supine position, feeding while sleeping, the prolonged use of the bottle, delay of protein and adult food. Other cultural factors that may influence this phenomenon have to do with the low status of women in South Asian societies. Maternal depression has been strongly linked to infant malnutrition; furthermore, female infants and children are far more likely than males to experience malnutrition and related diseases and problems, and to die before reaching the age of five. The problem of childhood malnutrition, while grave in itself, may also increase vulnerability in the South Asian population to the later development of obesity and metabolic-related problems such as diabetes.
There has been very little study of this phenomenon in communities of the South Asian diaspora, including immigrants from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Such research is important. Comparative research is especially crucial in this regard, since it could permit the identification of culture-specific practices and behaviors that might be amenable to modification. Our research team has considerable experience working in the New York City South Asian community (and, mention your stuff). We would like to develop a research intervention to assist South Asian families in this regard. However, to develop and fund pilot work, we would like to present preliminary data indicating the features, correlates, and prevalence, of infant and child malnutrition in South Asians. Comparative research which shows that some practices and behaviors are especially common or uncommon among South Asian families, will be particularly helpful in this regard.
We propose to conduct a secondary analysis of ALSPAC data. The 82 families of South Asian origin will be compared to 82 families of white-European background. We will select a comparison group matched on factors such as: housing status, parity, maternal and paternal education, gestational age at birth, and birth length.
We will compare the South Asian and control groups with regard to the primary outcome variables related to growth, e.g.,: BMI, height- Z scores, and head circumference Z scores. Secondary outcomes will include the longitudinal parent-reported feeding measures of: difficulty feeding, being choosy with food, not intaking a sufficient amount of food. Co-variates will include measures of; matenral depression, sociodemogrphics, child gender, parenting scores (i.e. HOME), etc.
Note, no new data are requested. We will conduct analyses with the dataset we already have, and will not require ALSPAC assistance.
B323 - PhD studentship - Development of an Automated Diagnostic Video Otoscope - 06/03/2006
(No outline received).
B529 - Study of the genetics and environmental impact of dyslexia in the ALSPAC cohort - 21/02/2006
AIMS
To test this hypothesis we propose to assess the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of DCDC2 allelic variations for reading performance in all 10,000 DNA samples of the ALSPAC epidemiologic collection. These children have been phenotyped with an array of age-appropriate neurocognitive and reading assessments. At a minimum we will attempt to correlate genotypes with quantitative tests of basic word reading (Wechsler Objective Reading Dimension: WORD subtests49), phoneme deletion (Auditory Analysis Test of Rosner and Simon50), and spelling (regular and irregular words). These tests are administered to the ALSPAC cohort at age 7. We will also include IQ assessments at age 8 through the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children III51, and other cognitive measures such as language and verbal short-term memory, and Key Stage 1 School Assessments, if available. Furthermore, our on-going lab studies of the developmental biology of DCDC2 and it's role in neuronal migration, and physiology studies through functional imaging studies at the Yale Center for the Study of Learning and Attention, will suggest correlating additional age-appropriate neurocognitive and language measures that are extant in the ALSPAC cohort.
These studies will lead to the development of a sensitive and cost-effective population screening tool that will identify children at-risk for RD before entering school and help to guide strategies for effective early intervention.Moreover, when considered in the context of our parallel studies of gene function and cognitive imaging profiles, they will lead to a comprehensive understanding of the neurodevelopmental processes subserving language, which should further guide the remediation of RD and other learning disorders.
B320 - Discovery of the 6p213 Reading Disability Gene NOW B0529 - 21/02/2006
(No outline received).
B319 - The Inheritance of Refractive Errors in ALSPAC - 13/02/2006
(No outline received).
B317 - Genetics of Obesity DUPLICATE OF B0246 - 03/02/2006
(No outline received).
B374 - Salt Blood Pressure and WNK Genes in Children and Mothers A Study Aimed at Informing Preventive and Treatment Strategies for High Blood Pressure - 30/01/2006
Blood pressure (BP) is a key determinant of cardiovascular health, but the pathways that underlie the regulation of human BP are incompletely understood. Key to the ultimate development of fully effective preventive and management strategies for high blood pressure, both at an individual and population level, will be a comprehensive understanding of the relevant biological pathways. Studies of environmental and genetic risk factors can inform this understanding, and current approaches recognise the importance of both. Recognised environmental determinants of BP include obesity, salt intake and excessive alcohol consumption. Familial aggregation of BP has long been recognised, and estimates of the heritability of systolic and diastolic BP have exceeded 50%. The identification of genes involved in BP regulation, by improving knowledge of the relevant biology, should facilitate advances in treatment and control of BP. The study designs employed in such studies need to account for the fact that BP is a complex trait. That is, it is caused by multiple genetic and environmental determinants that may interact in complex ways.
B340 - Chronic pain in adolescents - 23/01/2006
(No outline received).
B321 - Use of Dexa for Diabetes Study Non-ALSPAC grant - 23/01/2006
(No outline received).
B313 - HLA and Smoking - 19/01/2006
(No outline received).
B311 - Prevalence of Common Abnormalities of the Optic Disc in a Population of Healthy 12-year old children - 19/01/2006
The optic nerve is of key importance for the development of glaucoma and its impairment is the second largest cause of blindness worldwide. Although adult studies have described normal variation in the optic nerves of healthy individuals, there are no population-based data that systematically describe variability of the optic nerve in children. It is not known whether the optic nerve remains of a constant appearance after birth until disease may develop in middle-age, or whether important changes can occur in early life. Furthermore, children with atypical optic nerves are frequently investigated to exclude serious illness, because of the difficulty in characterizing normal variation in optic nerve appearance.
We propose to add much-needed data to the literature by taking the opportunity to grade a recently acquired library of retinal pictures from a population birth-cohort of healthy 12-year old children. The appearances of the optic nerves will be described, and any associations with individual characteristics such as birthweight and refraction will be noted. The pictures are already available, only the staff time to grade them is required, together with time to prepare papers for dissemination of the results. This unique opportunity will provide valuable data that will benefit opthalmologists, researchers and patients.
B310 - Metabolic and Vascular Changes and Perinatal Outcomes as Identifiers of Maternal CV Risk Obstetric Lifestyle and Genetic Determinants of Atherosclerosis Fat Mass Insulin Resistance and Dyslipidaemia in Women in Early Midd - 19/01/2006
Teen Focus 3 (TF3) follow-up of the ALSPAC offspring will begin in October 2006. Core funding for that clinic assessment has been obtained from the MRC and Wellcome Trust and the clinic procedures will focus on obtaining high quality measurements on the children that are funded from that grant. However, since the offspring are still of an age where parental consent will be required the vast majority will be attending the clinic with one of their parents/guardians. Some parts of the TF3 assessment require the parent/guardian NOT to be present and from experience with the TF1 and TF2 assessments there are other parts of the assessment where the parent does not stay with their offspring. Thus, there is an opportunity to complete some assessments with the parents/carers who are attending their offspring's assessment at TF3. This proposal is concerned with the scientific rationale and procedures for undertaking opportunistic assessments on the parents/carers who will be attending with their offspring at TF3.
B309 - Parkinsons - Neurogenetics - 19/01/2006
(No outline received).
B339 - Neurodevelopment - Access to DNA Bank - 18/01/2006
(No outline received).
B338 - Eating Disorders - 17/01/2006
(No outline received).
B337 - Dyslexia and Substance Misuse - 07/01/2006
(No outline received).
B336 - A pilot study to establish the reliability of parental targeted video material for studies of social communication in early childhood - 07/01/2006
The study team have been granted access to video data from the ALSPAC Children in Focus study. This sub-cohort consists of over 1000 children, most of whom were videoed with one or both parents using the Thorpe Interactive Measure, in which parents are asked to look at a book with their infants.
Almost all of these children had a psychiatric assessment (the DAWBA) at age 91 months. The cases are:
* 18 with ADHD,
* 32 with oppositional-defiant or conduct disorder,
* Six with pervasive development disorder (PDD)
* 26 with one or more anxiety disorders
* Five with a depressive disorder
There will be two controls per case, picked to be frequency matched on age (corrected for gestation) and gender.
This adds up to 261 videos to be analysed. As far as we know this is a unique dataset potentially allowing assessment of early behavioural predictors of child neuropsychiatric and psychiatric conditions. Our team have already developed techniques for detailed behavioural analysis of video material and have the necessary software and hardware.
B307 - Home Office - 06/01/2006
The parental criminality data were sent in two questionnaires - one to eachparent, when the child was 12 years of age. So far no other collaboratorshave provided funding for this data to be collected, prepared and filesbuilt for use.
B305 - Physical Activity and Childhood Obesity CONTINUATION of B0028 - 05/01/2006
We propose in this competing continuation to extend our current project examining the association between physical activity and obesity within ALSPAC by repeating the objective physical activity measures at age 15. These extended measurements will allow us to further explore the associations between physical activity, obesity and CVD risk factors prospectively in this large contemporary population-based study of children.The 15-year clinic has started (October 2006) and we are managing to collect collecting data during this interim period using our existing resources from the original grant (staff, equipment, etc). If we are unsuccessful with the renewal application we will cease measurements when the current grant ends (May 2007).
B304 - Investigation of Relationship Between Habitual Levels of Physical Activity - 05/01/2006
Exercise interventions are known to stimulate bone mass acquisition in childhood. However, it is unclear whether low levels of physical activity to which children in the UK are generally exposed also affect bone development. Whether physical activity affects biomechanical strength of the skeleton, thereby reducing the risk of fractures in later life, is also uncertain. We recently found a positive relationship between habitual levels of physical activity as assessed by accelerometer recording, and total body bone mineral content as measured by DXA, in 4457 11-year-old children from the unique Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children birth cohort. Equivalent associations were observed for height-adjusted bone area, suggesting that physical activity may affect cortical geometry and hence biomechanical strength of the skeleton. To test this hypothesis, we will examine prospectively the relationship between physical activity at age 11, 13 and 15, and cortical geometry parameters derived from pQCT measurements of the tibia at age 15. We will also examine interactions between physical activity, cortical geometry, fat mass and lean mass, based on our recent observation that the relationship between physical activity and total body DXA parameters is modified by body composition.