HEALthy Brain and Child Development National Consortium

This NIH-funded planning grant awarded to OSU Medicine as part of the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HEALthy BCD) study supports an 18-month planning phase focused on better understanding how prenatal and early-life exposure to prescription and other opioids affects infant and child brain development. Investigator will contribute to developing a common protocol to study neurodevelopment in diverse, high-risk communities. The planning grant supports the design and coordination necessary to move toward a longitudinal multicenter study that will ultimately follow thousands of children from the prenatal period through pre-adolescence.

The research will employ neuroimaging and comprehensive neurodevelopmental assessments to measure the impacts of prenatal substance exposure, while also investigating factors that promote healthy brain development and resilience in the face of adversity. OSU NCWR will coordinate with other funded sites and local partners, including the Laureate Institute for Brain Research and the University of Oklahoma, to ensure protocols are sensitive to the needs and contexts of the varied communities included in the consortium. Participants identified through the study, both mothers and their children, will be connected to treatment resources as needed, reflecting the study's dual emphasis on scientific discovery and clinical support. This planning phase builds on OSU NCWR's mission to confront the opioid epidemic through integrated care, research, and education.

The NCWR, launched to address addiction comprehensively, brings clinical capacity, such as its Addiction Medicine Clinic with certified academic addiction physicians, and research infrastructure to the consortium. The planning grant positions the consortium to design a rigorous, scalable longitudinal study that aims to generate actionable knowledge for clinicians, policymakers and communities affected by the opioid crisis.