# The Impact of the Intrauterine and Early Childhood Environments on Neurocognitive and Metabolic Development in African American Youth: Focus on the Gut-Brain Axis

> **NIH NIH UH3** · EMORY UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $1,619,862

## Abstract

PROJECT ABSTRACT
 Environmental exposures during the critical prenatal and early childhood periods can result in lifelong health
consequences. Mechanisms underlying these exposure-health relationships are complex, with exogenous
exposures (such as chemical toxicants, infectious agents, diet) and endogenous processes (such as gene
expression, inflammation and oxidative stress) activating metabolic pathways that lead to adverse health
outcomes. Both adverse exposures and their health consequences disproportionately impact African American
(AA) women and children, highlighting that health disparities begin in utero and are amplified postnatally.
Among outcomes disproportionately experienced by AA children are preterm birth, neurodevelopmental
deficits, and obesity – all linked to environmental exposures, yet poorly understood due to their etiologic
complexity. Our team is currently investigating preterm birth and neurodevelopment through 18-months in
relation to pre- and postnatal exposures to environmental toxicants and biopsychosocial risk factors in cohorts
of pregnant AA women (R01NR014800, R01MD009064) and their infants (R01MD009746) and via our P50
Children's Center (P50ES026071) in collaboration with the Emory HERCULES Exposome Research Center
(P30 ES019776).
 Through ECHO, we propose to elucidate exposures and risk pathways that contribute to
neurodevelopmental deficits and obesity in preschool aged AA children by: (1) Assembling an Atlanta ECHO
cohort of ~440 AA socioeconomically diverse mother-child pairs by combining extant cohorts for whom the
prenatal, perinatal, and early childhood environments are, or will be, characterized; (2) Completing the analysis
and synthesis of data from the Atlanta ECHO cohort to characterize mother-child pairs in terms of prenatal and
early childhood exposures (toxicants, stressors and neuroendocrine-immune activation, nutritional and
metabolic status, microbiome and infections, bonding and interaction); epigenetic and metabolomic profiles;
and perinatal outcomes (gestational age, size-for-gestation); (3) Testing cohort-specific hypotheses related to
prenatal and early childhood exposures and neurodevelopmental outcomes and obesity in AA children at 2, 3,
4, and 5 years of age; (4) Participating in ECHO-wide consortium studies to identify risk and protective factors
that moderate associations between environmental exposures, typical growth and development, and adverse
child health outcomes. Our cohort's participation in the ECHO consortium will contribute to a biopsychosocial
understanding of within- and between-race risk for adverse child health outcomes, providing insight into risk
and protective factors relevant to AA families. The proposed research is consistent with frameworks for
eliminating racial disparities, which recognize the need to study risks within-race as a vital first step, and is
congruent with the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities goal of promoting understanding
...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10470004
- **Project number:** 5UH3OD023318-07
- **Recipient organization:** EMORY UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** PATRICIA A BRENNAN
- **Activity code:** UH3 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $1,619,862
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2016-09-21 → 2023-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10470004

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10470004, The Impact of the Intrauterine and Early Childhood Environments on Neurocognitive and Metabolic Development in African American Youth: Focus on the Gut-Brain Axis (5UH3OD023318-07). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10470004. Licensed CC0.

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