# Developmental Trajectories and Autism Risk in NICU Graduates: A Longitudinal Study of Brain and Behavior

> **NIH NIH K23** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES · 2020 · $175,638

## Abstract

Project Summary
Candidate: This application is for a K23 career development award for Nicole McDonald, PhD, an F32
postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles (transitioning to assistant professor by award
start date). Dr. McDonald’s career goal is to become an independent investigator of atypical social
development in order to inform efforts to identify and treat at-risk infants. This K23 award will provide Dr.
McDonald with the necessary training and mentored experience to gain expertise in: 1) advanced
developmental neuroscience and electrophysiological (EEG) methods of measuring infant brain
development; 2) the effects of early medical risk on brain development and social behavior in neonatal
intensive care unit (NICU) graduates; 3) statistical methods for modeling longitudinal data. Environment:
Mentorship will be provided by Drs. Shafali Jeste, Isabell Purdy, and Damla Senturk, experts in EEG
methods and brain development in neurodevelopmental disorders, high-risk NICU graduates, and statistical
models for complex biomedical data, respectively. Research and Career Development: From the first days
of life, brain development occurs in the context of everyday interactions between infants and caregivers.
Differences in infant brain function may both precede and follow disruptions in early social interactions,
precipitating risk for adverse social outcomes while also offering an opportunity to intervene and improve
development. Infants who require extended Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) hospitalizations carry
multiple interacting risk factors that increase the likelihood of social deficits, including biological,
environmental, and socioeconomic risks. This study will build on the literature on infants with familial risk for
autism (i.e., younger siblings of children with autism), which has identified a growing divergence in social
communication behavior and brain development between 6 and 12 months of age. Through a collaboration
between the UCLA High Risk Infant Follow-Up Clinic and Center for Autism Research and Treatment, this
study will examine trajectories of social behavior and brain development from 6 to 12 months in high-risk
NICU graduates, infants with familial risk for autism, and low-risk controls. Well-validated measures of social
behavior and EEG, an accessible and scalable method of measuring brain function and connectivity during
infancy, will be utilized to compare developmental trajectories and examine whether early differences
predict variation in social functioning and development at 24 months. It is our eventual goal to apply the
identified behavioral and brain markers to a targeted study of an intervention designed to optimize social
development in high-risk NICU graduates. These aims directly address NICHD research priorities; in
particular, “research on biomarkers and outcome measures for intellectual and developmental disability
symptoms, severity assessments, and treatments, especially outcomes...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9890922
- **Project number:** 5K23HD096046-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
- **Principal Investigator:** Nicole M McDonald
- **Activity code:** K23 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $175,638
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-04-01 → 2024-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9890922

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9890922, Developmental Trajectories and Autism Risk in NICU Graduates: A Longitudinal Study of Brain and Behavior (5K23HD096046-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9890922. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*