Psychology ETDs

Publication Date

Summer 7-28-2018

Abstract

It is well established that alcohol exposure during prenatal development can lead to a heterogeneous and wide ranging set of morphological and neurobehavioral deficits that are collectively known as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs). Previous neuroimaging research conducted on individuals with FASD has primarily employed graph-theoretical based analysis methods on functional imaging data to elucidate the impact of prenatal alcohol on brain connectivity. This study applied a widely used computational algorithm, group independent components analysis (gICA), to extract coherent sets of voxels that were correlated with one another as a measure of functional network connectivity (FNC) in a sample of adolescents and young adults with prenatal alcohol exposure. Connectivity measures were then compared to those of healthy controls and related to measures of intelligence. Increases in connectivity magnitude were observed in the Alcohol Related Neurodevelopmental Disorder (ARND) group.

Degree Name

Psychology

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Psychology

First Committee Member (Chair)

Derek Hamilton

Second Committee Member

Julia Stephen

Third Committee Member

Vince Calhoun

Fourth Committee Member

Dan Savage

Language

English

Keywords

FASD, Prenatal Alcohol Exposure, Functional Connectivity

Document Type

Dissertation

Download

Included in

Psychology Commons

Share

COinS