Pilyoung Kim, Ph.D. - US grants

Many studies, including some by the PI, reveal that cumulative risk - simultaneous exposure to multiple environmental, psychological, and biological risks - resulting from poverty leads to pervasive emotional and physical health problems as early as infancy. However, there remains a critical knowledge gap as to whether the effects of poverty and cumulative risk originate before birth. We propose that prenatal exposure to cumulative risk is a key pathway by which the adverse effects of poverty are transmitted to fetuses during gestation. Moreover, this prenatal exposure to cumulative risk may also perturb a mother?s neural adaptation to parenting, which further increases the infant?s likelihood of receiving harsh parenting postnatally. The proposed study is innovative because it utilizes a unique intergenerational and prospective design. In a total of 200 pregnant women (110 low-income and 90 middle-income), cumulative prenatal risk will be assessed in each trimester (12, 22, and 32 weeks gestation). Shortly after the infant?s birth, neuroimaging of the infant and the mother will be performed to assess fetal brain development (using MRI, DTI, resting-state fMRI) and maternal neural adaptation to parenting during pregnancy (using fMRI). The overall objective of the proposed study is to identify the prenatal pathways by which poverty perturbs neural outcomes of two generations - infants and their mothers. To achieve this objective, we will pursue three Aims. Aim#1 - Identify the relations between poverty and cumulative prenatal risk. We propose that lower family income is associated with cumulative risk in environmental (stressful life events, poor quality home environment), psychological (perceived stress, negative mood) and biological (elevated cortisol, reduced oxytocin) systems during pregnancy. Aim#2 - Identify the relations among poverty, cumulative prenatal risk, and brain morphology and connectivity in newborns. We propose that lower family income is associated with reduced volume, white matter integrity, and functional connectivity among the neural stress circuit of the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex among newborns. Cumulative prenatal risk mediates the link between low income and newborn neural outcomes. Aim#3 - Identify the relations among poverty, cumulative prenatal risk, and neural adaptation to parenting in new mothers. We propose that cumulative prenatal risk mediates the links between family income and altered neural function for parental motivation and emotion regulation among new mothers. The proposed research is significant because it can offer scientific evidence to support prenatal intervention to reduce exposure to cumulative risk among low-income pregnant women. Compared to postnatal interventions with either mothers or infants, prenatal intervention is more effective and economical since it can potentially prevent poverty?s adverse effects in both generations by intervening with mothers only, prenatally. Furthermore, the current study will lay the groundwork for a new investigator?s research program for following a cohort of infants and their mothers starting from the first trimester of pregnancy to later developmental periods.

Cannabis is the most commonly used psychoactive substance among pregnant women. With more states legalizing cannabis use, the use rate is expected to increase. While many perceive marijuana usage during pregnancy as ?safe?, very little is understood about the neurobiological effects of cannabis exposure on mothers. Existing studies suggest mothers who use substances including cannabis exhibit mood dysregulation, impaired parenting ability and dampened neural responses to their children. However, most studies group together mothers using multiple substances and use a cross-sectional design. Thus, there is a critical gap in knowledge about the neural mechanisms by which cannabis use influences parenting ability and the critical period when the brains of women are particularly vulnerable to cannabis exposure. The proposed study is innovative because it recruits pregnant women who use only cannabis during pregnancy and employs a prospective design to identify the role of cannabis use during pregnancy in maternal brain functioning and behavioral sensitivity toward infants. A total of 70 pregnant women (35 cannabis-using and 35 control) will be recruited during pregnancy. The two groups will be matched for socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. Cannabis use will be assessed prenatally and postnatally by a urine toxicology test and in-depth interview. Shortly after the infant?s birth, neuroimaging of the mother will be performed using fMRI. The overall objective of the proposed study is to identify potential interrelations among cannabis use during pregnancy and neural processes of parental motivation and emotion regulation among new mothers. To achieve this objective, we will pursue two Aims. Aim#1 - To identify the prospective relationship between cannabis use and neural functions for parental motivation in new mothers. We propose that cannabis use during pregnancy is associated with new mothers? altered functioning in the neural correlates of parental motivation in response to their own infants? cry sounds. Aim#2 - To identify the prospective relationship between cannabis use and neural functions for emotion regulation in new mothers. We propose that cannabis use during pregnancy is associated with altered activity in the neural correlates of emotion regulation during effortful emotion regulation and in response to both prototypical negative emotional cues and infant cues. Altered neural responses to infants and emotional cues are linked to less sensitive parental behaviors. The proposed research is significant because it can offer scientific evidence to inform regulation and guidelines for reducing cannabis use during pregnancy. It will also offer guidance for more refined interventions to address both emotion regulation and parental motivation processes in order to improve cannabis-using mothers? parenting quality. Furthermore, the current project will lay the groundwork for a subsequent R01 application to support a longitudinal project, investigating the role of prenatal and postnatal exposure to cannabis on the neural and neuroendocrine systems in both mothers and infants.

Empathy, a unique human capacity to think from others' perspectives and feel for others, is an essential skill that will not be replaced by automation. While empathy is valued, there have been serious concerns about its absence in technology development. This project seeks to address that gap by developing hands-on labs to train high school students and to increase their empathy of others so that they can identify cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI) ethics issues. The hands-on labs developed in this project will be made publicly available so schools or teachers may freely use them. These labs, workshops, and summer camps will improve high school students' knowledge of, as well as skills and career interests in, cybersecurity and AI ethics. These activities will also foster high school students' empathy for others, especially young children. This project will help the next-generation workforce learn and apply knowledge and skills in designing and using future technologies in a secure and ethical manner.

This project presents a radically different approach to integrating cybersecurity and AI ethics education. It will use an empathy-driven approach to teach high school students about young children who are most vulnerable to cybersecurity and AI ethics issues. To enhance empathetic responses to young children, the project will include real-life examples of young children who are interacting with unethical AI or exposed to cybersecurity risks. Specifically, this project aims to develop, deploy and evaluate hands-on labs to train high school students and to increase their empathy of others in the context of cybersecurity and AI ethics issues. The labs will cover a wide variety of scenarios such as online gaming, social media, mobile apps, and smart toys. In addition to knowledge-based measures, this project will explore the usage of a cutting-edge non-invasive neuro-imaging technique, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), to assess the impact of these labs on the activation of brain regions associated with empathy in high school students.

This project is supported by a special initiative of the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program to foster new, previously unexplored, collaborations between the fields of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and education. The SaTC program aligns with the Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Strategic Plan and the National Privacy Research Strategy to protect and preserve the growing social and economic benefits of cyber systems while ensuring security and privacy.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.