Sponsored Research
Phase 1 (2016 - 2022)
Project Title: "Dyadic Inter-Brain Signaling Project (DIBS): Parent-Child Inter-Brain Emotion Regulation as a Predictor of Adolescent Depressive Symptoms"
Depression and emotion regulation problems contribute to significant public health problems and adolescence and adulthood. Despite evidence that parenting plays an important role in risk and resilience processes related to emotion regulation and depression, extant research has focused primarily on intra-individual emotion regulation and has not examined inter-individual emotion regulation, or how parents' emotion regulation impacts adolescents' emotion regulation and related mental health. Little is known about the impact of parenting on the neurocircuitry underlying adolescents' emotionality and depressive symptomology. To address these gaps knowledge, this study integrated (a) a developmental approach, (b) functional neuroimaging, (c) longitudinal clinical research to examine how risk and resilience for depression relate to the activity of the amygdala, lateral PFC, and other limbic and regulatory brain regions during interactions between adolescents and their parents. Read More
Dr. Amanda Sheffield-Morris is currently the RECA Core Director at CIRCA and a Regents Professor at the Department of Psychology at Oklahoma State University. She is also a Director at Oklahoma State University's Psychology Department in Tulsa, and serves as a Chair for the George Kaiser Family Foundation in Developmental Neuroscience. Additionally, Dr. Amanda Sheffield-Morris is the Editor in Chief for the Journal of Research on Adolescence and an Associate Editor for Adversity and Resilience Science: Research and Practice.
Project Title: ""Food and Alcohol Behavior Study (FAB)" - Examining the Epidemiology of Folate Status Attributable to Alcohol Use"
Inadequate Folate status is associated with negative sequelae in pregnancy, and impaired development of the central nervous system manifesting in neural tube defects and behavioral disturbances in childhood. This study sought to understand how alcohol use may contribute to or exacerbate inadequate folate status among adolescent girls.
Dr. Julie Croff is currently a Professor of Rural Health at Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, and a Biological Systems Core Co-Director at CIRCA.
Project Title: ""HATCH Project: Holistic Assessment of Tulsa Children's Health"
The primary goal of this study was to rapidly increase maternal-fetal bonding, a strong predictor of maternal health practices during pregnancy, through an intervention, BLOOM (Babies and Moms, connected by Love, Openness, and Opportunity). Specifically, the investigators examined change in maternal-fetal bonding across pregnancy and implications for change in maternal smoking during pregnancy using a randomized clinical trial design in a longitudinal, multi-ethnic cohort study of 160 women (ages 18 or older) who were 12-16 weeks pregnant. Participants were randomly assigned into one of two groups for the intervention; the control group received treatment as usual. Participants assigned to the treatment group received texted attachment/mindfulness exercises. Participants completed an in-depth initial assessment that includes sociodemographic measures as well as a battery to capture maternal-fetal bonding and self-reported smoking. Pre- and post-tests were used to assess maternal-fetal bonding and smoking before and after the intervention, to allow for examination of change across pregnancy. The positive impacts of this work included information that will be used to reduce the impact of unintended pregnancy for adverse infant health outcomes.
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Dr. Karina Shreffler is currently an Adjunct Professor for the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and College of Medicine at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. She is also a Cindy Ellis-Purgason Endowed Chair and Professor of Nursing at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, and a Chair at the Department of Child and Family Health Sciences at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.
Project Title: ""Neurotropic Indicators of Cognition, Executive Skills, Plasticity, and Adverse Childhood Experiences Study"
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are repeatedly shown to predict negative biopsychosocial health outcomes, including obesity. High rates of ACEs in communities are often paralleled by high obesity rates, and higher ACEs, such as child abuse, have been shown to positively predict later obesity and use of unhealthy weight control behaviors. Thus, in light of the high prevalence of and potential causal links between early-life stress and obesity, there is a critical need to further explore the ACEs-obesity relationship in order to understand and to improve obesity outcomes. Given the adverse impact of ACEs and obesity on brain health, two potential high impact treatment targets of the ACEs-obesity relationship were explored in this pilot study: 1) markers of neurocognition (i.e., executive function; EF) and, 2) brain health/plasticity (i.e., neurotrophins like brain-derived neurotropic factor; BDNF and glial cell derived neurotrophic factor; GDNF).
Dr. Misty Hawkins is currently an Associate Professor at the Health and Wellness Design Department at Indiana University.
Project Title: ""Juntos Se Puede (Together We Can)"
Juntos Se Puede (Together We Can) is a community-based, culturally-appropriate, psychoeducational intervention that shows significant promise to reduce stress and ATOD (alcohol, tobacco and other drugs) use among Latino youth in new settlement areas. Before an efficacy trial is conducted, a feasibility trial is designed to answer two sets of questions. First, what are the most efficient recruitment and retention strategies for Latino immigrant families? What engages parents and youth in the program? Second, how will Latino youth and their families respond to requests to provide biomarkers used to determine cumulative stress burden, as assessed by allostatic load? What relationships exist between common psychosocial factors and allostatic load among Latino youth?
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Dr. Ron Cox is currently a Professor and Extension Specialist at the Department of Human Development and Family Science at Oklahoma State University, and still serves as a Chair for the George Kaiser Family Foundation in Child and Family Resilience.
About Phase 1
To understand the long-term and complex relationship between early life adversity and subsequent health and functioning, the focus of CIRCA must necessarily identify, fund, support and train researchers from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds with diverse methodological skills and theoretical perspectives. Phase 1 research support cores were available to assist all funded projects, as well as others affiliated with the Center, and included: the Biomarker Core, led by Dr. Kent Teague, a faculty member at OU-Tulsa and OSU-CHS and director of the Integrative Immunology Center at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC), the Design and Analysis Core, led by Dr. Mark Payton, Chair of Statistics at OSU and Isaac Washburn (OSU), the Human and Community Research Training Core, led by Dr. Amanda Harrist at OSU, and the Administrative Core, which coordinated training and mentors project leaders, led by Drs. Jennifer Hays-Grudo and Brenda Smith, both Regents Professors with strong histories of NIH funding in related areas. Dr. Hays-Grudo is located within the Center for Health Sciences and Dr. Smith was located in the College of Human Sciences. The initially funded research projects include: • A social demographer's project to develop a registry of teen pregnancies in order to identify predictors of rapid repeat pregnancies (a second birth within 2 years) and develop more effective prevention and intervention strategies, led by Dr. Karina Shreffler, OSU-Tulsa (now at the College of Nursing, OUHSC); • A family systems-based intervention to increase the involvement of immigrant Latino parents in their children's schooling in order to prevent drop-out and risky health behaviors such as substance abuse and gang involvement, led by Dr. Ron Cox, OSU-Tulsa; and, • A public health researcher's study using innovative wrist wear measuring blood alcohol levels in adolescent girls, correlating binge drinking behavior with serum folate levels in order to develop more effective prevention strategies to prevent birth defects and other developmental disorders related to teen alcohol use, led by Dr. Julie Croff, OSU-Stillwater (now at OSU-CHS). • A children and socio-emotional development researcher's study to explore inter-individual emotion regulation, specifically how parents' emotion regulation impacts adolescents' emotion regulation and related mental health, and the impact of parenting on the neurocircuitry underlying adolescents' emotionality and depressive symptoms by way of fMRI hyper scanning, led by Dr. Amanda Morris, OSU-Tulsa. • A study by a health psychologist in behavioral medicine to identify whether brain markers of neural health are related to ACEs and/or neurocognitive executive function performance and whether neuronal or glial neurotrophins predict or change in response to weight loss, led by Dr. Misty Hawkins, OSU-Stillwater. Numerous pilot studies were also funded that included researchers from multiple departments with OSU, from both Tulsa and Stillwater campuses, from the OSU Center for Health Sciences in Tulsa, and from OUHSC in Tulsa. In addition to pilot projects, the Center is also seeking to assist in the recruiting of new faculty to OSU by providing funding to enhance start-up funds for new faculty hires who would contribute new approaches and expertise to the Center. These funds specifically target university colleges, departments, and disciplines not currently represented in our team of investigators.