Transcript
Hello. My name is Blake Gimbel, and I’m a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota in the United States. I’m really excited to be here and to speak with you today about our team’s work using brain science to understand and treat the brain, and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder in children. We focus our research on trying to improve the lives of individuals with FASD, while also building on the tremendous strengths of the FASD community.
One research avenue our team is trying to address is an important need, which is early and accurate diagnosis for youth with prenatal alcohol exposure. We’re partnering with our colleague Sarah Mattson and her team at San Diego State University in California, and we’re helping to test Dr. Matson’s web-based brain assessment tool for children ages eight to sixteen years with prenatal alcohol exposure. This tool includes a parent questionnaire and several video game type tasks that measure a child’s ability to pay attention, to learn, and to remember. This study will hopefully provide valuable information that may help to shorten diagnostic evaluations. It may reduce costs and may also increase access to services for more families, especially those living in more rural areas without access to a diagnostic clinic.
Our team is also actively engaged in testing new treatments for youth with FASD that really aim to support a brain and behavioural development. The one ongoing study is nutritional intervention for young children with FASD, ages two to five years of age. We’re using a fruit flavoured, powdered mixture that contains choline, which is an important nutrient for brain development and function. In older children and teenagers with FASD ages eight to seventeen years, we’re evaluating an intervention that uses computerised cognitive training, paired with brain stimulation. And our researchers showed that these interventions are well tolerated and may provide important benefits for children with FASD. For example, we found that in young kids, choline supports memory functioning. And in older kids, this cognitive training and brain stimulation might support attention skills.
Lastly, we’re using brain imaging techniques and cognitive testing in order to better understand how brain development is affected by prenatal alcohol exposure, and how changes in the brain relate to behaviour. Our research has shown that the brains of youth with FASD developed differently, compared to those without FASD, even beyond the early childhood years. We’ve also shown that the way that brains change over time is helpful for understanding differences in attention and thinking skills. We hope that our findings might provide new insights about when and how we can most effectively treat the brain in FASD in order to support development during childhood and also into adulthood. Thank you very much for your time.