From genes to brain to behavior in early childhood development

A growing body of research has implicated a finite number of early neurobehavioral traits that—in various permutations and combinations—relate to a diversity of prevalent psychiatric conditions of childhood. This presentation will review and synthesize current information from genetic, epidemiologic, and developmental studies that have identified compelling candidate pathways from genetic susceptibility to early behavioral variation. Influential within-individual traits will be considered in the context of external factors that amplify or attenuate their effects on outcome, and that jointly identify targets for a new generation of risk surveillance Methods and therapeutic supports for young children and families. There exist reliable and measurable parameters of variation in the first years of life that highlight the opportunity for higher-precision approaches to understanding and addressing trajectories of enduring behavioral impairment. In addition to rare and common genetic variants, a finite set of key neurobehavioral traits are quantitative in nature, and incremental (additive) in their effects on outcome. There are clinically tractable predictors of environmental risk that can now be systematically harnessed to identify individuals and families who will benefit from supportive intervention. A corollary to the existence of a parsimonious developmental substructure for psychopathology is that many control subjects in case-control designs possess the same predictors as cases; when unmeasured in both groups—or when the known causal contributors are not accounted for comprehensively—the ability to identify early biomarkers is severely eroded. The next generation of studies on causation and prevention of psychopathologic syndromes of childhood will benefit from taking into account translational advances in understanding of the relationship between genes, brain, and behavior in development. Measurements of a discrete set of within-individual and contextual factors of demonstrated impact on early childhood development can be systematically incorporated into both longitudinal research and clinical practice, and analyzed in relation to outcome, to accelerate discovery in personalized approaches to promote the well-being of children.