"Child and Adolescent Mental Health"
The focus of research is on causal pathways of complex disorders within maternal and child health. Specifically, the focus is on prenatal factors related to maternal lifestyle (e.g. stress, obesity, etc) and child outcomes (e.g. birth size, growth, mental health problems).
The studies consist of large-scale research projects, multi-methods (including biological markers, experiments, various research designs) and international collaboration to identify causal risk factors.
The research agenda is delineated to build and expand on previous research in order to be able to come closer to disentangling causality. Some of these studies for example examine behavioural correlates of ADHD in an effort to better characterize the disorder from other commonly co-morbid disorders. This is an important endeavour with ramifications both for theory and for clinical practice, e.g. potential causal risk factors in the prenatal environment for ADHD are examined and, in other observations, a sibling-design is used to answer the question of whether prenatal exposure to maternal smoking is causally related to ADHD.
Several peer-reviewed papers have been published and more are on their way. Example of ongoing collaborative multidisciplinary projects in this area: Maternal pre-pregnancy obesity and childhood ADHD symptoms. Collaborators: Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) study team (University of Bristol) and University College London, UK; Animal model of obesity and ADHD. Collaborators: Reproduction and Endocrinology, Behavioural Pharmacology, King's College London, UK; Prenatal, neonatal and postnatal factors in infant neurodevelopment and self-regulation. Collaborators: Department of General Psychology, Psychological Innovations and Research Training Center, Vilnius University, Lithuania and Kaunas Medical University Neonatology Clinic, Kaunas, Lithuania; Nordic Network on the Role of Prenatal Factors for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Collaborators: University of Oulu, Finland; Imperial College, London, UK; The Danish Epidemiology Science Centre, Denmark; Aarhus -University, Denmark, University of Bergen, Norway; UCLA, USA; The EArly Genetics and Lifecourse Epidemiology (EAGLE) Consortium is a consortium of pregnancy and international birth cohorts that aims to collaborate to investigate the genetic basis of phenotypes in antenatal and early life and childhood. Data include 1958 British Birth Cohort; ALSPAC; CHOP; COPSAC; DBC; Exeter Family Study; Generation R; HBCS; LISA+; MoBa; NTR; NFBC 66; Project Viva; Raine) have genome-wide association studies data available by July 1st 2009.