UF Team Joins National Study of Brain Development in Infants, Children
The University of Florida is one of a network of institutions selected to implement the National Institutes of Health’s HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study or HBCD, a longitudinal, multidisciplinary effort to study brain development and behavioral health in young children, the NIH announced Thursday.
The HBCD study, which involves 25 institutions across the country, will enroll thousands of pregnant women and their babies and follow them through early childhood to identify trajectories of brain development.
“Having a benchmark like this will help researchers better understand how exposure to substances, stress, and environmental factors during this crucial time can affect the brain and alter a child’s behavioral development,” said Matthew Gurka, Ph.D., one of three co-principal investigators leading the study at UF. He is a professor in the College of Medicine’s department of health outcomes and biomedical informatics and associate director of the UF Institute for Child Health Policy. He also holds a joint faculty appointment within the UF Anita Zucker Center for Excellence in Early Childhood Studies.
Learn more about UF Team Joins National Study of Brain Development in Infants, Children.