Gene-Environment Interplay and Young Children’s Executive Functioning
This pilot project was funded by the University Research Corridor’s Bloodspot Environmental Epidemiology Project (BLEEP). In collaboration with the Michigan Department of Community Health and Michigan State University, we recruited a sample of twins from the Michigan State University Twin Registry who reside in southeastern Michigan communities with above average levels of poverty or crime based on 2010 Census figures. Aims were to establish the feasibility of recruiting a sample of at-risk twins and to obtain data on DNA methylation of candidate genes linked to executive functioning (EF) difficulties from newborn blood spots from the Michigan Neonatal Biobank. Twins completed a battery of EF tasks assessing working memory, inhibitory control, and attention shifting that was validated with an ethnically diverse, low-income sample of three-year-olds.