# Vermont INBRE Administrative Supplement

> **NIH NIH P20** · UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT & ST AGRIC COLLEGE · 2020 · $162,230

## Abstract

Project Summary
Objective biomarkers of disease states offer significant potential for improving clinical diagnoses and
care. Despite widespread increases in the incidence of infants born with neonatal abstinence syndrome
(NAS), there are currently no objective clinical measures of this syndrome. NAS infants exhibit a wide
range of symptoms with characteristic dysregulation of central nervous system activity including
pronounced sleep disruption. Recent developments in bedside electroencephalography (EEG) have
enabled researchers to continuously record neonatal brain activity across behavioral states with high
temporal resolution and minimal confounding artefacts. These noninvasive and affordable recordings
are readily implemented in clinical settings and thereby have great potential for characterizing healthy
and disordered brain activity. In Aim 1 of this proposal, eight hours of continuous bedside EEG will be
recorded from healthy infants 24 – 72 hours post-birth. Identification and assessment of basic
electrophysiological characteristics of healthy sleep will occur to establish baseline metrics of typical-
developing neonatal brain activity. These data will then be compared to similar EEG recordings
collected from NAS infants. By comparing sleep EEG parameters across the populations and for NAS
infants to assessments of NAS severity as determined by the ESC care tool (the current subjective clinical
assessment of NAS), the goal is to develop novel, objective biomarkers of NAS. As a complementary
approach to Aim 1, in Aim 2 bedside EEG recordings will be re-analyzed to quantify EEG complexity
within healthy controls, NAS neonates, and across behavioral states. Unlike traditional EEG analyses,
complexity measures are sensitive to inherent nonlinearities in brain activity and consequently reflect
different dynamics of ongoing neuronal activity. As measures like Lempel-Ziv complexity and multiscale
entropy have already shown widespread promise as potential biomarkers for a diverse set of brain
disorders, it will also be determined whether they may serve as biomarkers for NAS. Collectively, this
work will improve the diagnosis and care of NAS infants and will additionally increase our understanding
of healthy neuronal communication patterns within the infant brain.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10153094
- **Project number:** 3P20GM103449-19S1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT & ST AGRIC COLLEGE
- **Principal Investigator:** REX FOREHAND
- **Activity code:** P20 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $162,230
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2001-09-30 → 2025-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10153094

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10153094, Vermont INBRE Administrative Supplement (3P20GM103449-19S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-14 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10153094. Licensed CC0.

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