A Researchers' Guide to the HEALthy Brain Child Development (HBCD) Study

Wesley Thompson Organizer
Laureate Institute for Brain Research
ARCADIA, CA 
United States
 
Hugh Garavan Co Organizer
University of Vermont
Psychiatry
Burlington, VT 
United States
 
Wednesday, Jun 26: 9:00 AM - 10:15 AM
2177 
Symposium 
COEX 
Room: Grand Ballroom 104-105 
The HBCD Study is the largest longitudinal study of Infant brain development and child health in the United States. The consortium will collect data beginning before birth, neonatally, and through childhood, including anthropometrics (growth measures); medical and family history; biospecimens (samples such as urine and blood); and social, emotional, and cognitive function. Infants will be followed for at least 10 years. Study aims include the characterization of variation in neurodevelopmental trajectories from infancy in the US population and the genetic and environmental factors that impact these, including the prenatal environment. (Further information on the study can be found at hbcdstudy.org.) The HBCD Study will contain neurodevelopmental data on a sample of unprecedented size and scope, with participants mirroring the complex and varied sociodemographic diversity of the US. With the public release of the full baseline dataset in January 2025, this symposium will be the first of its kind in any venue to introduce the study, its aims, design, and measures to neurodevelopmental scientists who will be able to access and utilize its data to address their own research questions. Given the size, complexity and scope of this landmark study and unprecedented resource, this symposium is timely and crucial to promote understanding of the HBCD Study aims, design, and measures to the neuroimaging field.

Objective

1. Understand the overarching HBCD Study aims, recruitment strategy, measurement domains, and jittered longitudinal design for data collection,
2. Distinguish the different ways of accessing and utilizing the neuroimaging, demographic, cognitive, biosamples, and health data
3. Analyze study data in ways that maximizes internal and external validity, estimation of individual trajectories of brain, behavioral and cognitive development, and characterize the advantages and limitations of the HBCD dataset when designing, executing and publishing HBCD research.
 

Target Audience

Researchers of all experience levels who would like to use the HBCD study data for investigations into infant brain development, maternal substance use, language development, social and emotional functioning, neurocognition, and genetics. This course also provides information on
tools for manipulating raw imaging data for researchers of neuroimaging methodologies, such as image processing and data harmonization. 

Presentations

1. HBCD Study Aims and Design

The HBCD Study is the largest long-term study of infant brain development and child health in the United States. The HBCD Research Consortium consists of an Administrative Core, a Data Coordinating Center, and 25 research sites across the country, which will enroll 7,500 pregnant women. This presentation is an overview of the HBCD study from inception to the release of the baseline data. This talk will highlight the study aims, recruitment strategies, cohort structure and collaborations with U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other federal partners. 

Presenter

Christopher Smyser, Washington University in St. Louis St. Louis, MO 
United States

2. HBCD Imaging Protocol

This lecture will describe the HBCD longitudinal imaging protocol and processing. The HBCD Consortium has established a multimodal structural and functional brain imaging protocol which is collected in the first four years of life: 0-1 months of age, 3-9 months, 9-15 months, 15-48 months. Data will subsequently be collected roughly on average every two years. The protocol features structural MRI (T1-weighted and T2-weighted images), diffusion MRI (diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and restricted spectrum imaging (RSI)) and resting-state fMRI. EEG data will also be collected longitudinally. 

Presenter

Hugh Garavan, University of Vermont
Psychiatry
Burlington, VT 
United States

3. The HBCD Assessment Protocol

This lecture will cover the longitudinal (non-imaging) measures and assessments of HBCD. The consortium will collect data beginning before birth, neonatally, and through childhood, including anthropometrics (growth measures); medical and family history; biospecimens (samples such as urine and blood); and social, emotional, and cognitive function. Dr. Potter will describe the timing and scientific rationale of these assessments.
 

Presenter

Alexandra Potter, University of Vermont Burlington, VT 
United States

4. HBCD Data Acquisition, Processing and Public Access

This session is an overview of how different imaging and non-imaging data streams are being captured, processed, and stored in HBCD. Importantly, the data will become publicly available to all researchers in late 2024. This presentation will thus also cover how to access and analyze the complex and large-scale data being collected by HBCD via the Data Exploration and Analysis Portal (DEAP). 

Presenter

Damien Fair, Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain, University of Minnesota Medical School Minneapolis, MN 
United States

5. Longitudinal Design and Analysis of the HBCD Study

This lecture will cover the longitudinal visit structure of HBCD (jittered and weighted more toward the first 30 months of life), analyses of data that promote internal and external validity, and trajectory estimation of neurodevelopmental outcomes. Methods covered will include population and propensity weighting, longitudinal data analyses, mediation models, and nonparametric trajectory estimation. 

Presenter

Wesley Thompson, Laureate Institute for Brain Research ARCADIA, CA 
United States

6. HBCD Public Release through NBDC Data Sharing Portal

Leigh will present and demonstrate the upcoming public release of HBCD data through the NBDC ecosystem. This ecosystem features two platforms, DEAP and Lasso, enabling users to query, download, and access both HBCD and ABCD data. In the session, Leigh will showcase how users will be able utilize Lasso to access, query, share and download multi-modal data from the HBCD Study. 

Presenter

Leigh MacIntyre, Lasso Informatics Montreal, Quebec 
Canada