FROM CELLS TO SELVES Biobehavioral Development FROM CELLS TO SELVES Contents The NICHD Mission ..................................................................................... 1 The Strategic Planning Process ................................................................... 2 Introduction ............................................................................................... 3 Scientific Goals of the Strategic Plan ........................................................... 5 Biobehavioral Bases of Developmental Continuities and Discontinuities: From Birth Through Parenthood ...................................................................................... 5 Development of Individuals With Disabilities and Chronic Diseases ................................. 14 Research Technologies and Resources ....................................................... 19 Data Collection and Analysis Related to Neural Networks and Dynamic Systems for Analysis of Development ............................................................... 19 Animal Models ........................................................................................................... 19 Functional Neuroimaging ............................................................................................ 20 Brain Tissue Banks ....................................................................................................... 20 Training and Education ............................................................................ 21 Appendix—Roster of Advisors .................................................................. 23 Biobehavioral Development i FROM CELLS TO SELVES The NICHD Mission The National Institute of Child Health and Human Programs at the NICHD are based on the concepts that Development (NICHD) seeks to ensure that every individual adult health and well-being are determined in large part is born healthy, is born wanted, and has the opportunity to by episodes early in life, sometimes before birth; that fulfill his or her potential for a productive life unhampered human development is continuous throughout life; and that by disease or disability. The Institute further strives to help optimal outcomes of development are important not only to parents have the children they want, at the times they want the individual but to society. NICHD research is also them, and to ensure that every mother experiences a directed toward restoring or maximizing individual pregnancy free of adverse complications. Key to the potential and functional capacity when disease, injury, or a success of this mission is answering the fundamental chronic disorder intervenes in the developmental process. questions of how a single fertilized cell eventually develops Thus, the NICHD mission truly spans the life cycle, and into a fully functional adult human being and how a much of the health and well-being of our population multitude of genetic and environmental factors influence depends on the success of the Institute’s research. that process for good or ill. Biobehavioral Development 1 FROM CELLS TO SELVES The Strategic Planning Process During 1998 and 1999, the NICHD staff engaged the This document refines the goals and objectives outlined scientific community in jointly developing a strategic plan under the area titled “Biobehavioral Development.” to facilitate achieving its mission. The initial framework document for this plan, From Cells to Selves, highlighted To help establish the more detailed research agenda that four areas for immediate strategic development and follows, the NICHD convened a working group described a series of scientific goals under each area. comprising distinguished scientists (see Appendix) from These four areas were as follows: around the country and asked them to collaborate with Institute staff to identify and prioritize research goals and • Genetics and Fetal Antecedents of Disease Susceptibility to suggest appropriate strategies to meet those goals. includes the interaction of the genotype with The working group drew upon ongoing planning efforts, socioeconomic, environmental, and psychological previous emphasis areas, recent forums, workshops, factors in the fetal and postnatal environment that conferences, and research findings to develop a draft of contribute to health or the pathophysiology of the strategic plan that would guide the Institute’s research diseases. agenda in biobehavioral development for the next 5 years. • Reproductive Health for the 21st Century comprises the biological and behavioral factors that allow The draft plan was posted on the NICHD Web site to couples to have healthy children when they want them allow members of advocacy groups, nonprofit and the reproduction-related conditions that may organizations, the scientific community, and the general affect women during and after their reproductive public to comment. In addition, the Institute shared the years. plan with members of the National Advisory Child Health and Human Development Council and with the • Developmental Biology: Understanding Normal and Friends of the NICHD, a coalition of more than 100 Abnormal Development consists of the basic biological professional and patient organizations committed to the science necessary to understand early development Institute’s scientific mission. After consolidating and in utero and through the time when many organ reviewing all comments, the NICHD revised and systems form. finalized the plan. This document is intended as a targeted, but flexible, blueprint that can be modified as • Biobehavioral Development includes research to better new scientific findings, research opportunities, or understand the developmental processes involved in resources become available. forming cognitive, learning, emotional, social, and physical behaviors, and the biological and environmental factors that make infants, children, and adolescents more susceptible to behavioral disorders or to adopting risk-taking and violent behaviors. Biobehavioral Development 2 FROM CELLS TO SELVES Introduction If we truly wish to understand human health and as cognition, language, learning, memory, behavior and to devise effective, practical ways to apply academic skill acquisition, emotion, cognitive-based basic science advances to improving human health and social interactions, and planned motor function. behavior, we must first understand the complex interplay among external, biological, and behavioral factors that ➢ By “environment” we mean external factors such as results in a human being. In addition these interactions, nutrition, health care, environmental toxins, and all related functions, processes, and outcomes, must schooling, and the full range of experiences of be understood in the context of developmental changes children in the family, community, and broader that occur over time. Without understanding society. fundamental biological factors such as brain structure and function, changing hormone effects, or genetic • The biobehavioral interface is inherently bi-directional. contributions, it will be difficult to develop more effective ways to treat, let alone prevent, complex developmental ➢ Biobehavioral development research targets the conditions such as mental retardation, autism, attention development of behavioral processes (along with deficit disorder, and learning disabilities. Nor will we be their interrelations with molecular, genetic, cellular, able to truly understand how one learns to read or and neural systems), whole organ processes, and communicate or how to best teach and parent our environmental factors to understand how these children. By simultaneously addressing developmental interrelations contribute to typical and atypical problems and the impact of external factors on development. A full understanding of the impact of biological and behavioral functioning, scientists could these interrelationships requires a more integrated use research funds more effectively, while saving critical research approach. Studies that focus on only one time and guarding the fragile hopes of affected level of analysis are not sufficient. individuals and their families. • Traditional disciplinary boundaries must be crossed. Certain basic concepts underlie the NICHD For example, scientists or teams of scientists who have biobehavioral strategic plan: an understanding of both neural processes and social behavior must be recruited to study social • The nervous system represents a continuum of neural development. processes involving the entire brain, cranial nerves, the autonomic nervous system, and the peripheral • The creation and use of animal models must be nervous system. supported and expanded. Cross-species comparisons are no longer sufficient. Conceptually sophisticated • Behavior is an emergent property of the nervous studies must take into account phylogeny and system, driven by environment, context, and ontogeny. experience and requiring specific neurophysiological states and processes. • Researchers will be encouraged to include examining long-term behavioral consequences in studies ➢ By “behavior” we mean both internal and external incorporating biological manipulations (e.g., gene actions or responses originating from factors such Biobehavioral Development 3 FROM CELLS TO SELVES manipulation, reproductive intervention, or hormonal knowledge gaps, amazingly little scientific information manipulations). exists to tell us exactly which aspects of behavioral experience are essential to human development, or how • There also